Mirage
by Le'letha
Summary: Given how often Tony Stark's in Las Vegas, he knows there's no real magic there. …Except for that one mysterious behind-the-scenes genius. Who can't actually be a space alien. Because that would be…fantastic, actually. [or, the FrostIron Vegas AU nobody asked for]
1. Domino

_**Mirage**_

 _ **Le'letha**_

 **Summary:** Given how often Tony Stark's in Las Vegas, he knows there's no real magic there. …Except for that one mysterious behind-the-scenes genius. Who can't actually be a space alien. Because that would be…fantastic, actually. [or, the FrostIron Vegas AU nobody asked for]

 **Author's Note:** Two people actually did ask for this story. _You know who you are._ Everyone and anyone else, if you've followed me over from "Nightfall", 1: I realize that this is not what you signed up for, which leads me to 2: I'm getting back to my beloved HTTYD universe, but 3: this is the kind of plot bunny that lurks in the corner until people feed it and it grows up into the Rabbit of Caerbannog.

 _given this story's setting, I think it is once again appropriate to say_

ON WITH THE SHOW!

 **Chapter One: Domino**

 _Picture this, then._

The brightest street on Earth, and perhaps the loudest, and almost the most famous. Millions upon millions of lights blinking, blazing, the smaller ones blotted out in patches by the hordes of people swarming, laughing, calling out to each other, pointing and staring. And maybe the lights in those eyes are delight, or maybe only the dazed reflections of the burning, burning street and the spotlight that roars out a welcome to the stars.

A castle; a pyramid; a tent bigger than towers; a building that curves like a billowing sail. A volcano. A ship that burns and sinks and rises again. Dancing, singing, profligate fountains, water spraying lavishly into the desert air. A city within a city, in grandiose miniature. A spindly, staggering tower, legs planted wide; a single spire, stabbing at the sky. Pieces of the world, picked up and jumbled together. A child's playset of a city, scrambled together with an ironic grin and a challenging glance.

The magician draws attention, when he cares to be seen. A tall man, slender, elegant, with a striking, sharp-cut face and keen eyes, trailing long dark hair with just a suggestion of curls, left uncut in an ongoing fit of spite. He wears a suit well, and he is with some amusement aware of it, although he misses the clothes he grew up with. He wears them still, when he can; he suspects that even in armor with soldiers at his heels, still there would be someone more out of place stumbling from a doorway nearby.

He has not yet cared to try this.

He accepts the looks, from sidelong glances to outright stares, as his due. Being seen has never bothered him; why should it? If he did not wish to be seen, he would not be.

There is something cold in those green eyes, though. Hundreds of years – not that long – ago, the people who gathered around the springs and the meadows they nurtured against the desert might have named him and known him well.

He cuts through the hordes as if none of them exist, untouched in the midst of chaos; a creature of true glamour and pure gold, he is indifferent to the glamor and gilt all around. The magician moves like a wolf, easy and graceful, balanced in the way of a dancer, or a fencer, aware of his body and his space.

But bright lights dazzle; in the truth of starlight, some might have said: _coyote_.

The coyote is clever, and he is reckless, and yet he survives long after the noble, the bold, the great and the powerful have withered and starved and been hunted to their bones. He will sit on the edge of the light and yowl scorn, and answer shouts and warnings with mocking laughter, bold and careless until the besieged man lifts a weapon to his shoulder and takes aim. And in that moment, the coyote is gone, as if he had never been.

Coyote is always getting himself into trouble, and everyone else along with him. He never, ever learns, and he never, ever stops.

The first people of the meadows would recognize Coyote, mad and irrepressible and cunning, charming even as he runs rabid.

The magician has coyote eyes, glittering with the lights of balked rage and ever-creative spite and deep-etched bitterness, and a mad coyote smile, showing just the edge of teeth.

But the coyote belongs in the desert that spills away to the horizon, beyond the glare of the lights, and the magician is very far from home.

It is a poor refuge, this place of glitter and glamor, illusion and deception and desperation. But illusion and deception are his weapons, and there is something…

… _delicious_ …

…about the freedom to tell the absolute truth and have people believe it a jest and a pretty lie, although at times he wishes to _roar_ , to cloak their streets in the guise of another world and have them know who and what he is in truth.

But there is no one the magician trusts to believe him, and this place is so much more complicated than his home.

The coyote may laugh at the gun, but he keeps to the shadows as he does.

He passes through the sliding doors into the tower like any other man, weaving unconsciously through the crowd, registering only the momentary glance of acknowledgement from the woman guarding her shining desk. Many of the people who work along the street know him by sight, perhaps believe him one of them, as they are meant to do. Someone who belongs, not one of the travelers who come to look and be deceived and submit gladly.

And yet, there are whispers, the magician knows, that coyote grin sparking at the thought.

Time and restlessness and caution – and no little skill at unlocking doors thought securely closed – have given the magician a thorough knowledge of the elaborate buildings that line the blazing street, pacing out his chosen cage. There are hiding places and retreats beyond easy reach, built over and forgotten, abandoned as inconvenient or dangerous, architectural oddities dismissed and disregarded.

One such door, high in the rearing tower, clicks beneath his hand as long fingers brush over the electronic lock. _Hush_ , the magician commands silently. _I am permitted to be here. No one need be disturbed_ , and the tiny mind, barely even a spark, falls still without complaint.

As the door opens, he pauses, listening for the echoes of movement, the breath of the air, any indication that he is not alone. Closing his eyes, he asks the wind, _who's there?_

 _No one, no one,_ the wind sighs, tumbling from the pipes and hastening back again.

The passageway beyond boasts none of the effusiveness of the rest of the building. It is a practical, matter-of-fact place, built to work, not to display. It is a humble secret passage, and not even a secret, at that.

But it will serve, and the heavy door that he comes to beyond a trio of curves most of all.

Cool to the touch, it is locked, of course, and trained to wail if opened, but only to people without magic in their hands.

The cold desert wind tears at him, slamming the door closed and whipping the magician's long hair across his face as he ventures out onto one of the small ledges that winds around the tower's walls. Beneath him, the abyss and its millions of lights blaze, blotting out the stars. But the wind carries with it the smell of the desert, gaping and open, clean and brutal, shedding the heat of the day.

Surefooted, secure in the knowledge that no one can see him, the magician reaches for the ladder, taking the rungs in carelessly devouring strides. He makes his way across catwalks, along ledges, taking routes even the most daring climbers would hesitate to try without support and making running jumps no one would consider, twice clambering across surfaces never meant to be trodden. He walks the coiling, narrow line of a waiting, ice-cold track like a wide and sunny road.

The peak of the tower is a long way up, but the magician is not afraid to fall. He has run laughing and leapt blindly and fought for his life over greater depths, and he has fallen much, much further before.

The swaying, darkened rooftop is a space between, and thus a favorite of his, in a world he so often despises. Exile below, and home beyond. It is a parody of an escape, just a little way, but it helps him to bear this world a little longer.

The magician settles in the lee of the rail-thin spire, closing his eyes to the night and trading, for a stolen moment, one pretense for another.

It could be any height, any evening; any retreat from the raucous carousing and ruckus of another place, another time.

He misses the smell of the sea, but in all this backwater world there is perhaps no place he can blend in as easily as he does in this one.

So he waits, and he watches, and he dreams of bright skies.

The tower is the tallest in the city; from the regular platform, on a clear day, you would be able to see for hundreds of miles.

From the very top, on a clear night, with the smallest of illusions to dim the lights from below, you can almost see forever.

Almost.

It's never, never far enough.

* * *

"You know," says Tony, grinning his fifth-best grin – the third-best is reserved for press conferences, the second-best for hot girls he intends to catch for a night and release, and the very best for when he really, really wants something and knows Pepper is going to try to fight him over it, and the mildly tipsy kid in the Goku shirt who's trying to glare at him over the scattered disarray of the billiards table is none of those – "the more you play with that thing, the harder it's going to get."

There's just enough laughter from the audience of bystanders and casino girls and waitresses and spectators and – whatshisname – probably-Elliott's two friends to put the kid off his stroke, but he's sober enough to stop before he plows the head of his pool cue into the green baize and misses his shot entirely.

"C'mon, man," he protests good-naturedly, "I'm not that easy."

A little bit of a real grin sneaks in around the corners of the fifth-best for distracting people one. He's beginning to like the trio's style, just a little bit, not that it's going to help their current sacrificial lambkin win the game. The stripy balls left on the table already outnumber the solid ones, and Tony likes pool. It's angles and math and vectors, with the neat solid _click-click-click-chunk_ sound the balls make as they ricochet off each other and the edges of the table and go right where he wants them to.

Although Elliott, which might be his first name or his last, either/or, no big deal, whichever, is an MIT kid and a more recent one too, so he probably knows how vectors work. He squints at the purple-and-white ball like he knows where he wants it to go, and lines up the cue ball and his shot again.

He'd like to say he's mature enough to not sabotage the kid's game any further, but what fun would that be?

Also, Tony maintains that he's exactly mature enough to drink, and no more.

"At least they're the very best penalty shots," he comments almost nonchalantly enough to be real.

Elliott flinches – it's great whiskey, it burns like liquid ghost peppers, briefly but fiercely, and he's already had two of the tiny mini-shot glasses on top of whatever else he and his classmates were drinking before they ran into Tony and challenged to him a game, and before Tony raised the stakes by offering a wager they couldn't pass up.

Even if he did then make everything that much difficult by making it _shot_ pool. Every game should either have shots or stripping at stake, as far as Tony's concerned, and while Tony's never been against the occasional walk on the wild side – what part of _unapologetic total hedonist_ did you not understand? – three MIT boys probably avoiding the blackjack tables lest they be evicted for suspicion of card counting aren't high on the list of people he really wants to see naked tonight.

Now if it had been that waitress with the punk haircut and the purple tips – her fingernails are the same color and he's curious about what other tips she might have dyed – strip pool would _definitely_ have been the plan, at least for however long the game lasted. Probably not long.

And even he probably isn't allowed to play strip pool in public, and this definitely qualifies. Tony can _feel_ the eyes on him, tugging at him, shining at him like spotlights, and he basks in the attention and the admiration and the awe. He loves being the center of attention, loves not even needing to _ask_ for it, or even do anything: people show up in the knowledge that he _will_ do something, or just to say that they've seen him in person.

Yeah, he's that awesome. Damn right.

He should award himself vacations more often, Tony decides, feeling the heavy blanket of a week shut in his lab slip away, burned off by the lights and the hungry eyes. He'd locked himself in there to really get some work done, building himself a remote-operated precision manipulator that, if he could get all the bits moving in concert, would be able to check and repair missile components _without_ having to take apart the missile first, because people get nervous when they have to take apart something that should have gone off bang but didn't.

The mounted magnifying glass he likes to use kept frying pieces of circuitry, and he'd finally switched, however reluctantly, to the zoom lens and lost himself in rewiring and creating welds so delicate they'd probably be invisible even to the magnifying glass, the tiny, mighty mini-welder flaring warm through his work gloves.

He's still not sure how long he was there. Long enough that when Pepper finally stepped in to make him eat something, he nearly fell off his stool and knocked three mostly-empty coffee mugs off the table.

Coffee is _gross_ when it's old, why has no one invented better coffee that doesn't congeal into something that looks and tastes like it's going to sludge away into a black-and-white monster movie from the fifties and eat cars before being blown up by some ridiculously square-jawed hero? And why, if DUM-E can understand _bringing_ coffee, can't the silly bot understand _taking_ coffee _away_?

He _thinks_ he'd threatened DUM-E with being turned into a parking meter, if he'd been using recognizable words at that point.

But he'd made the waldo _work_ and it's going to make defusing misfires so much easier and safer.

Sure, it'd be better if they didn't misfire in the first place. Tony should probably be at the Oakland factory checking all their procedures and blowing some of their ordnance up himself. For quality testing purposes, of course.

Instead he'd slept for nineteen hours, eaten the first half-dozen things he'd found in the fridge, and taken off for Vegas in the Maserati before Pepper could catch him. Racing people who just couldn't resist trying to match the car – it's a very chaseable vehicle, as half the Highway Patrollers in California will attest – along the way until their engines gave out into clouds of dust and steam had been just a taste of the fun that roars up and down the Strip like an endless wave, and Tony is all too willing to throw himself in and surf it.

And now at last Tony feels like he's back on again, out of that darkness where he goes sometimes. He wants people around him again, wants the noise and the lights and the smells of hope and desperation – they both smell like alcohol and perfume. His tongue can practically taste the adrenaline that's soaked into the walls of even the newest casinos; his teeth can feel the humming that's like being wired right into the slot machine lights, racing with every pulse and breath, every roll of the dice and flip of the cards and spin of the wheel.

Pepper can find him if anything comes up that she can't handle, whatever that might be. Most of the casinos on the Strip know her; they'll keep her in the loop, if she calls. And she can always call him. On which note, he should actually check his phone at some point.

Or maybe he should just get himself on TV and then she and JARVIS can track him down by the footage.

MIT Boy Elliott changes his mind and finally makes his move, launching the cue ball to hit the 13; elastic collisions, check. The orange-and-white ball ricochets across the table, brushing against the 6 and the 14 but not hard enough to really get them going, and hovers over the lip of the corner pocket next to Tony's fingers – he has finally learned to keep them off the table, no matter how drunk he is – before finally deciding it does want to obey gravity after all.

Physics is working tonight. Excellent.

Elliott and his friends cheer and slap palms, and Tony happily accepts a mini-glass of top shelf whiskey from the intriguingly purple waitress, one of five standing around with trays of tiny penalty drinks, wedged in between the luckier bystanders.

"To balls!" he proposes a toast, and tosses it back to applause and catcalls.

 _Damn_ , but he loves Las Vegas!

"It's actually a really interesting project," MIT Boy #2, whatever his name is, maybe Griffith or Griffin or something like that, assures Tony.

"And nothing to do with blackjack, I'm sure," Tony volleys back: the deal is that if the MIT boys win the game, Tony has to look over and critique their project for this semester's class on electrical engineering.

On the other hand, if _he_ wins, Elliott and co. have to reprogram all the phone lines at MIT, including the public address system, to make everyone sound like either Darth Vader or C-3PO.

They groan more or less in unison, which is pretty impressive. "Oh, like we've never heard that before," says MIT Boy #3, who's so very much a central-casting Brian that Tony's half convinced he's actually a Brianoid or Brianotron constructed in some lab that Tony wants in on, by the way. The Brianomatic has been equipped with some very lifelike eye-rolling action.

"Kid, you're the one in an MIT shirt in a Vegas casino." Tony chalks up the tip of his cue and saunters around the table to take aim at where the errant white ball has wobbled off to. "Check Urban Dictionary, you're going to find your picture next to _asking for it_."

Besides, he really doesn't have anything better to do right now than trawl Las Vegas in search of something intriguing, something new. He doesn't have the first idea what their project is about, agreed to critique it without even knowing the topic – because they picked him out of the crowd, easy enough, but then they worked up the nerve to corner him and _ask_. He doesn't bite much, unless someone's into that, but the undergrads clearly have balls that aren't on the table being knocked around. So maybe it'll be groundbreaking and he'll hire the lot of them.

If Tony's life is about anything, if he was the kind of person to generalize and philosophize and do various other things ending in - _ize_ , it's about the Next Big Thing.

Cutting-edge is for suckers; he lives his life on the bleeding edge of the razor, carving out new frontiers. Tony wants to take _possible_ and turn it upside down and shake it for the _potential_ that falls out of its pockets like coins of a bright new world.

Worst-case scenario, their stuff is boring, and he'll pass it back to them with sarcastic comments all over it, and then he'll have to sit through another Board of Directors meeting with only the irritation of knowing that Justin Hammer is ripping off _more_ of his stuff to distract him.

Obnoxious little lickspittle. They're not even good rip-offs. Tony and some of his lab techs have been getting good mileage out of blowing them up in interesting ways, and they have video evidence that the satellite model crashed and burned after they all glared at it really menacingly. The camera gets _frightened_ , what the hell?

If he didn't know who'd rebuilt it, he'd almost be impressed with the level of artificial intelligence that displayed. Hammer's invented artificial stupidity! By accident!

Anyway, it's the principle of the thing.

Really.

Tony's got principles. He's got tons of principles, just not when it comes to women or sarcasm or not making an ass of himself in public.

 _Don't take my stuff_ is a principle.

Still, as Obie says, that's what lawyers are for, and they've got to pay those guys for something.

Tony narrows his eyes at the 6 ball and traces the ballistics in his head in between the lazy dopamine fireworks going off in distant corners of his skull.

All the possible paths go spooling out across the table like the holograms in his lab, lines of possibility and potential, probabilities whose waveforms haven't yet collapsed. The 6 is a straightforward shot, the cue ball's in an ideal position, but if he taps it hard enough so it'll come off the opposite bumper at what he'll eyeball as a 24-degree angle then it'll get the 2 going as well, and although it'll probably sideswipe Elliott's 15 as it travels, it should have enough kinetic energy to keep going and hit the left-hand side pocket, plus if he gives the 6 enough of a kick in the first place, the 15 will hit the 5, which has been lurking in an awkward sort of up-against-the-wall-and-not-in-a-fun-way limbo since the initial break…

He's more than a little drunk already, and part of him that he apparently listens too far too often has taken a good long look at the available ladies in very low-cut, tight-cut dresses crowding around the table, and someone has just spun a slot machine into ringing all its bells and whistles, and all around he can hear side bets being placed on each shot and calls for more drinks and napkins while they're at it, someone's elbow must have gotten jostled too hard, but it wasn't his…

…and the _math_ , the math is pure, it's clean, and it's always there, and it's never steered him wrong.

Propping the cue on the knuckles of his left hand, Tony leans over the table and ignores his favorite red-tinted glasses slipping down off the top of his head. Wow, he's getting old, he'd forgotten he'd left those there. Guess there's nothing left to do but go out in glorious flames that will leave people asking "How did he _do_ that?" for decades.

Or, at the very least, send the cue ball skipping across the baize fast enough and hard enough to pocket the 6 and still get things moving just as he'd predicted. The 2 and the 15 and the wallflower of a 5 ball go caroming away; the 2 disappears into a corner pocket with a satisfying little _click_.

Tony manages to stop himself from saying "Who da man!" so he's definitely not drunk enough to matter yet.

The audience whoops and settles their side bets. Someone's got a camera flashing. Tony pulls out the fourth-best grin and aims it back at camera guy.

"Does he have to drink two of those now?" someone in the audience asks, at which Elliott looks slightly queasy.

The rest of the audience goes "Ooh!" with the air of a Colosseum that's just been informed that the lions are coming, hurrah, hurrah.

"I have it on good authority that hurling on the table ruins the rest of the game, so let's go with _no_ on that one," Tony declares, waving the hand that isn't holding a pool cue magnanimously. Those things are deadly weapons in the wrong hands. Or drunk ones.

He's feeling the buzz himself, actually – the MIT boys weren't the only ones who got a head start. The free drinks that so many of the casinos offer on their gaming floors are everywhere, and the servers make sure he gets the good stuff, maybe because they know him, or maybe because the third-best grin is for cocktail waitresses too, or maybe because he tips well. It's fine. He's fine.

He's not even sure which casino this _is._ It might be the MGM Grand or the Hilton or New York squared; it's probably not the Luxor or Excalibur, which are both consistently themed to a rather obnoxious degree, and it's definitely not Circus Circus, which is even more so.

It's _all_ fine. Tony's just going to let it ride until it stops or he falls over or the sun comes up or Pepper fetches him out of an actual pool with real water and possibly topless pretty people at some point. That's what Las Vegas is for.

Even for him, there's just so much Las Vegas, so brightly lit, at such a high volume; the edge has to come off somehow.

He'll go outside and get some fresh air after this game.

Or maybe the next one.

If he can find the door by then.

The casinos on the Strip are like a maze, carefully engineered to keep people in. No clocks on the walls, that golden glow instead of even a hint of natural lighting, new attractions and new temptations – hell _o_ , cutie! – at every turn. Impossible not to stop and watch. A flashing, laughing, shouting, alluring maze, with distractions, and free drinks.

Who needs a minotaur when you've got free drinks? Daedalus had overthought things. Moving floors and trapdoors – _moo_ ving floors, hah! Probability of being drunk with greater than point-oh-five significance, rising – forget 'em; the Ancient Greeks should have just piped in a constant supply of that wine-dark…wine…and put a padlock on the door.

Had the Greeks invented padlocks?

He likes the way his hands are still reverberating with the impact of the shot, plus a spontaneous high-five from one overenthusiastic lady who is definitely _not_ a cocktail waitress, her eyes that bizarre Vegas mixture of glazed over and glittering. Pool's such a _real_ game, more so than craps or poker or blackjack. Nature itself works on pool rules, angles and mathematics and ballistics.

Right now there are trillions and trillions of hydrogen atoms rebounding off each other, random-walking their way out of the depths of the sun, ricocheting this way and that in the biggest mosh pit in the solar system, dark and hot and fervent, hip-checking each other in three dimensions until a few of them burst out into the light, burst out to _become_ light, flung away and free to streak 150 million kilometers faster than anything else in the universe only to plow straight into Earth's atmosphere eight minutes later, heating the atmosphere into motion, spinning it out of lifeless balance to kick-start the wind that pushes around clouds until they burst, emptying into the Colorado to race downhill through the Rockies off towards the Gulf, slowing only a little to confront the massive bulk of the Hoover Dam, turning those turbines and grinding out electricity – a whole chain, a whole conga line of excited atoms kicking each other in the ass until the very last one in the line is kicked right out of some cleverly angled mood lighting rigs that almost give this area the feeling of a proper dive bar, only with much less likelihood that someone will be leaving on their teeth.

Just so Tony Stark – and assorted other people who don't get his spotlight, but can have the reflection if they're interesting enough – can hit some balls with a stick.

 _Technology_ , yeah!

The Brianoid joggles Elliott's elbow and starts hissing anxiously in his ear, pointing at the table, and Tony watches with amusement as the almost painfully clean-cut kid nearly gets sideswiped with the pool cue for his pains. But something must have gotten through, because after that Elliott starts playing defensively, not trying to maneuver his striped pool balls around so much as spoil all Tony's best shots, and the game stalls for a bit as they snipe at each other and sober up, tossing one-liners mostly borrowed from movies across the table. Tony's slightly proud of the way the 12 ricochets three and a half times between the bumpers, going absolutely nowhere as every head around the table bobs back and forth to follow it.

As trick shots go, it's spectacularly useless, but it does end up in the no-man's-land almost exactly in the middle, snarled behind other balls from every direction.

"Hey," approximately-Griffith chips in at one point while Elliott sidles around the table and some angel in only slightly more than a glittering bikini (there are pants involved somewhere) starts serving up snacks, delicate little confections that could _almost_ be bar food if they weren't so delicious, rich, and smooth, "if you were working on anything involving solid or opaque holograms, would you be able to tell us about them? I mean, if it's proprietary, of course not, but this dope here was really spooked earlier. Do us all a favor and tell him it was just a really good trick?"

Tony says something rather like "Mmph," through a mouthful of miniature sandwich and jabs the toothpick at him. "Sort of. Depends on what you mean by holograms. I've got some in my workshop, some of the Stark Industries labs use holographic work surfaces. Mostly depth projections and schematics, wire models and exploded diagrams. Why? Are we talking about a holodeck here?"

They're really good sandwich-kebabs. Griffith takes two, one for each hand, and starts eating them a piece at a time like a complete weirdo. "Nah, no one's got that yet, right?"

"If they did," Tony assures him, not without a hint of longing, because _every_ good little nerd wants a holodeck someday, "either they'd be making billions in the entertainment industry, and I'd know about it, or they'd have sold it to the military and, three guesses, first two don't count, I'd know about that too. And I'd have tried to buy it off them. Nope. Nothing doing. But if you find one, call me."

To his credit, Griffith pulls his phone from his pocket, flips it open, and says with a straight face, "Hi, Mr. Stark? I think I saw a holodeck earlier today."

"If you don't take that shot sometime this year, kid, I'm going to give your turn to the first volunteer," Tony threatens the stalling Elliott, who glares at him a bit tipsily and then at the crowd as a dozen hands shoot up.

Someone actually says, "Ooh! Me! Pick me!"

"We were just at this magic show up the road," Griffith goes on. "Totally ridiculous. It was about the kind of mad scientist with Einstein hair and a Frankenstein accent who blows up his eyebrows –"

Tony can't help but interrupt. "Hey, I've done that. Don't laugh," he adds, just a second too late.

"You have?" the Brianotron asks, eyes wide with the sort of hero worship only extended to people who blow shit up real good. It might be a guy thing, although Tony has a number of women on staff at the main campus alone who are _really_ into explosions.

"Yeah." If he sounds rueful, it's not at the memory – it's at what happened immediately afterwards. "Pepper – my PA, she's amazing, _nothing_ fazes her, the sky could fall in and she'd sigh very slightly and go about coordinating the press coverage – showed up the secondmy bots put all the fires out, which took way longer than it should have, with what she called an eyebrow pencil at the ready to draw them back on."

As Elliott finally sends the cue ball off to its date with destiny and the red-and-white 11, Tony adds, "So then I found where she'd put it away, and I gave myself Spock eyebrows."

A section of the crowd whoops and applauds and punches the air; some of them are wearing Star Trek shirts. Now that Tony gets a good look at them, as the people immediately around them duck and recoil from their enthusiasm, some of the shirts look so new they might be right off the rack, with creases still running across the fabric. This is probably the Hilton, then.

The 12 sinks into a corner pocket, and a few people cheer Elliott on general principles.

"Took two days before she noticed. I almost got to go to some sort of arts opening thing with them, it would have been _great_. I still think I would have gotten away with it, if I hadn't found an old set of pointy ears to go with them."

Pepper had caught him trying to get the cheap old latex props to stay in place in the bathroom mirror. She'd folded her arms and simply said "No," in that tone that laid down the law and staple-gunned it into place, _ker-chunk, ker-chunk,_ and had refused to move until he took them off and put his eyebrows back the way they were supposed to be.

No sense of humor, Pepper Potts. None at all.

Which isn't at all true, but it's Pepper's job to keep heads on straight and Tony's to turn them; it works out.

Amidst another wave of laughter, Griffith goes on. "Anyway, his last trick was duplicating a member of the audience, and Brian here –" He flicks the empty toothpick at the Brianoid. "– volunteered, like an idiot, you should never volunteer for anything."

Griffith might be ex- or upcoming-military, Tony notes; Rhodey used to say that in a tone so cynical even Tony could pick up on it.

He's not always good at emotional cues, but he is dead-on on sarcasm.

"Well, go on," Griffith nudges his friend, "tell him."

"Hold that thought," Tony points at him, and accepts a mini-glass from a waitress. Downing his penalty shot in a single gulp, he snaps the cue ball at the first likely-looking trajectory and doesn't stop to see where it goes. "Ball's back in your court, I think the phrase is."

Elliott mutters furiously to himself, watching the balls rebound. Their audience is starting to drift away, moving on to higher-stakes tables and faster-moving cards, which is fine. There are always more.

"Man, I could not tell the difference," enthuses Brian. "It looked just like me. An instant tri-dee copy, not transparent or see-through at all. I can't believe my hair looks like that from the back! I'm going to shave it all off."

Tony's no judge of hair, but Brian's can only get better.

"And it moved like me! How did it know? Unbelievable." He shakes his head, raising one hand and reaching out in unconscious recollection. "I couldn't quite touch it, but it didn't even flicker when I waved my hand through it – to prove it wasn't a guy in a costume, you see. And my hand went all tingly, like there was an active electromagnetic field! Totally creepy."

Now, that…that is interesting, just a whiff of something newly possible. It's quite possible that the MIT boy band have been taken in by some clever application of smoke and mirrors and sleight of hand; that's what magic shows do so that even if you know how the trick works, your eyes still lie to you. Tony had taught himself a couple of magic tricks as a kid, coin fades and palming objects, before getting sidetracked into lock-picking and never going back.

A high-resolution screen, some good cameras, a mirror or film too thin to be seen and 360 degrees of projectors to populate it with images, that would do the trick. Glass and mirrors have been showing people ghosts for literally centuries, you can do it with the right angles and good lighting and no electronics at all… But how had the Brianoid put his hand through it, then?

It's certainly something Tony would want to pursue. He's always looking for ways to upgrade his own basement lab at home, and the weapons programs would eat up working holograms like ice cream.

The spoofing applications would be endless! It'd be a quantum leap up from throwing aluminum chaff out of bombers, that's for sure. Invisible planes with built-in cloaking devices…he can practically hear Obie breaking out the champagne as the Air Force starts storming the phone lines.

And if anyone can make something out of a Vegas sleight-of-hand trick, Tony is one hundred percent certain it's going to be Tony Stark, genius.

…okay, sure, he's got a few worlds he'd like to build in a holodeck someday, although _his_ is going to have better doors and some sensible safewords.

"That actually sounds really cool," Tony admits, after condemning Elliott to another shot glass of finest whiskey. "So where can I find that guy?"

The kid's slurring his words; Tony's mildly impressed that he's still managing to play pool. "No'so fas', gotta get tha' stinkin' blackbody," he insists.

"Maybe we could make that the wager instead?" Griffith offers, resigned to losing.

"I think you're just scared that Dr. Russell's going to catch you wiring up her phone. Is she still there?"

" _Oh_ yeah," both mostly-sober undergrads grimace.

"Scariest woman _ever_ , am I right?"

Brian admits, "Nobel Peace Prize for important work in terrifying undergrads."

"Okay, I'll tell you what. Stand aside, kiddo." He nudges Elliott gently enough, props him up on the end of his pool cue before he hurts himself or anyone else with it, and sets to work on the remaining solid-color balls.

 _Click_ and _click_ and _click_ , and the black eight ball makes an end of it.

The original crowd has mostly dispersed by then, probably gone off in search of James Bond dreams, and been replaced by an even more mixed crowd of bystanders. Griffith and the Brianoid relieve the remaining waitresses of the leftover shot glasses – no student ever, in Tony's experience, passes up free booze.

"How about," Brian offers, wheezing through the burn, "we tell you where to find the guy with the holograms, and we wire a voice converter into the phones some day when Dr. Russell _isn't_ on campus?"

Tony snatches the last shot glass for himself; it's on his tab, after all. "Okay, I'll let you off the hook that much. It's a deal."

He can practically see them sag with relief. Tony never has nightmares about being unable to find his high school locker while naked – he terrified a series of tutors until he could terrorize MIT instead, and he's yet to be embarrassed about being naked – but his few school-related nightmares feature Dr. Russell more often than anything else.

He fumbles through his pockets, which have acquired the usual array of junk since he last checked. Eventually, an old business card emerges, along with half of a golf pencil, and Tony puts extra-special care into writing legibly. His handwriting's bad enough on the best days. Give him a keyboard or voice recognition any day. "I'm going to expect video, though. Here's my email. Or _an_ email anyway. _Somebody's_ email that might reach me at some point."

Griffith seems the least drunk, so Griffith gets the card.

"And if you happen to accidentally send me the specs of your project," Tony adds, "I'll look at it if I get a chance."

He might as well have announced that they've won the Nobel Prize themselves, the way they cheer and slap each other on the back.

"Jeez, you're embarrassing me. Wait, nope – never happens. I know, I know, I'm awesome. Dude, if you hug me, I will swap your project for a remedial city college worksheet and publish it online under your names."

The Brianotron manages to turn the half-formed gesture into a spirited imitation of a cheerleader, only with fewer pom-poms and, mercifully, more clothes.

"Name and location of that magician now, and then you can go pour your friend into bed," Tony suggests, smirking. "They won't let him sleep on the table."

"You know that personally?" Griffith asks, doing his best to match the smirk. It's not as good.

The original crowd is long gone, drifting off and reforming elsewhere, changing places with the people who have drifted into orbit around Tony and the MIT kids, and other players are moving in on their table despite the college kid starting to drool on it. His breathing is thick but steady, his complexion clear; tomorrow's hangover is going to feel like Alderaan after the Death Star came to call, but how many undergraduates get to play pool with one of the richest geniuses in the world on a Friday night just because they were in the right place at the right time?

The young men heave their friend to his stumbling feet, and Tony laughs. "You," he says, "are not old enough to hear _that_ story."

* * *

He finds his way out of the casino on the third try, after being briefly distracted by the Star Trek Experience and a pack of Elvis statueimpersonators camped out next to the real one. Well, the real statue, at least.

Once he's out in the world Tony purrs to have eyes on him, like a petted cat in a sunbeam, well-fed and content, master of all he surveys. It's all attention; for now, it's all good.

And he's okay. There will always be other crowds. Other eyes to light him up and keep him in the spotlight, reminding him why he works so hard to shine. He needs those eyes to lure him out of his cave, to show off the wonders he's brought into being while he walled himself away from them all.

Because _that's_ where the magic happens, in the things that can be understood if he's just clever and creative enough.

That's better than magic. That's science. That's engineering at its best.

Tony Stark has yet to see anything sufficiently advanced to be even close to indistinguishable from magic. And he doesn't expect to find it, not really.

But there are worse places to look for something that doesn't exist, on the off chance it might be that next best thing, on a warm summer night in 2005. He's on top of the world with nowhere to go but straight up, and there are a thousand, thousand ways to strike lucky in Las Vegas.

Even if there's still no such thing as magic.

* * *

 _To be continued._


	2. Meet Me in Las Vegas

ON WITH THE SHOW!

 **Chapter Two: Meet Me in Las Vegas**

"Oh," says Maestro Mysterio, Master of Magic and Knowledge Beyond the Realm of Science, Heir to Houdini and Shaper of Space and Light. All his exclamation points must have gone to his billing, because the rest of his general demeanor suggests nothing more than a lizard flattened on the highway, desiccating in the sun. The occasional twitch is the result of yet another blow rather than any enthusiasm for life, and getting out of the way would be an expenditure of effort far beyond reach. " _Him_."

Maybe he's better on stage. Maybe he only comes to life with an audience to dazzle and a spotlight to shine in. Tony gets that. Tony could give speeches on that, and has done once, even though he was meant to be talking about something else at the time. But backstage at Circus Circus, home of _all the clowns ever,_ and, to be fair, some pretty good thrill rides, seems the same as anywhere else. It's all glitter on the surface and the desperate need to work right barely hidden underneath. Assistants in practical black clothes reset props and – not without sideways glances at the intruder in their midst – wipe down and tune fishing line too thin to see without beads of oil gleaming on their infinitesimal surfaces, running invisibly around the stage like a spider's web.

Beautiful girls in spangles, sitting on the edge of the stage and massaging feet sore from discarded spike heels, touch up each other's makeup, bemoan how thirsty the spotlights make them, and berate each other and Maestro Mysterio, mostly Maestro Mysterio, for missing their cues. Someone's on their brick of a cell phone, telling their kid to do their homework or else no trip to the new Atomic Testing Museum on Saturday. One of the men cleaning up from the dinner show is collecting misplaced room keys; he and a friend of his are racing each other to the full set from all the major casinos.

Further away, the high-pitched screams of the kid passengers on the Slingshot vie with those on the indoor roller coaster Canyon Blaster for noise. It's as close to an overexcited kids' paradise as anywhere on the Strip, Circus Circus. Playland gone wild can be heard from the street, much less through the walls between the central atrium and this particular stage, off in one of the rings scattered out under the big top dome. Not far away, the splashes of the raft ride churn. There's enough neon in this one building alone to cobble together the sort of laser that might be able to draw a smiley face on the moon. From Kansas.

That would make finding the damned man in the moon a whole lot easier.

Casino security had made a few gestures in the direction of stopping Tony from strolling into a show in its off hour, but talking very fast and looking like he's knows what he's doing haven't failed him yet.

"Hey!" someone had challenged him. "What do you want?"

"How about the Space Shuttle?" That moment of _huh?_ is a reliable tool, too. He really would like a spaceship, though. One day, Mars… "Or I might want to offer someone a job. Your pick. And I don't see any space shuttles."

That had won him some goodwill, and then he'd described the special effect that the MIT boys had talked about.

"I didn't –" Maestro – okay, Tony is just going to call him Dr. Frankenstein – had blurted, and then visibly bitten back his next words with the air of someone who has managed to put their whole foot in their mouth and start chewing.

Aha. He doesn't have to watch _CSI_ to know that if the first lead doesn't pan out, time to follow the next one. Tony had taken a wild guess.

"– design that one? So who did?"

And thus we come full circle.

While Dr. Frankenstein scowls, because that could take _forever_ , Tony veers away up the stairs to the stage, groping cautiously for any more of that fishing line in between poking at props: an outsized Jacob's ladder, a panel with blinking lights that looks stolen off a second-rate science fiction show, a hanging spotlight he quickly sizes up as out of his reach, a mirror-mirror-on-the-wall, a rack of witch's brooms. "Is it one of these? C'mon, man, I'm curious. Magicians never reveal their secrets and all that, but I'm not a believer, you can tell me. Your boy Houdini would have been bang alongside me on this, by the way. Holograms, man, do you really have a working holoprojector and how does it work?"

"Careful, trapdoor," one of the stage assistants says, putting a foot out to block him even as she muscles up her end of a coffin-shaped box that's probably part of an escape stunt, ponytail waving.

"Beautiful, strong, _and_ kind. I will buy you a drink any day, call me," Tony all but bats his eyes at her.

"Make it offstage without breaking anything, and I'll think about it."

"I'm not – you can't – who the hell do you think you are?" Dr. Frankenstein protests, and rolls onward before Tony can give him the obvious answer: he thinks he's Tony Stark, inventor-extraordinaire and engineering genius. "Look, that routine's the climax of my whole show, and you can't just walk in here and wreck it just because you feel like making another million dollars to spend on another night at the tables. This is my livelihood, okay?"

Tony navigates to the edge of the stage, tips an imaginary hat at the ponytailed assistant, and sits himself down next to but diplomatically out of reach of the spangled girls. For good measure, he tips the hat at them too. They look less impressed.

Every time he buys a fedora, Pepper takes it away and hides it and informs him that it's for his own good. Apparently no hat is ever going to make him look like Indiana Jones, but a man can dream.

"That's cool. Dude, that's fine. I'm just looking. Show me that it works and send me on to the guy who built it, and I'll be out of your…hair," he finishes dubiously, eying said hair.

"It's a wig."

"I kind of figured."

Dr. Frankenstein fumes for a couple more minutes. Tony settles in and checks his phone for missed calls. Pepper has to have noticed that he and one of the cars are missing by now.

Finally, the magician mutters something uncomplimentary-sounding under his breath and gives in. He tromps up the steps like he's been told to put down his video game and take out the trash, and beckons Tony over to what's clearly meant to be a magic mirror.

"There's patter that goes with this part, but you don't care," he notes accurately. "And then it does this. Stand here. Look at the mirror."

Tony looks. It looks like him. Sharp goatee, battered-to-shreds AC/DC shirt, suit jacket he'd been wearing over it because he'd found it in the car when he left, famous face. He's been photographed so many times it's a good thing souls don't exist and so can't be worn away with over-exposure, or else he would have been a zombie by eighteen. Nothing new for him to see here; everyone else can just keep staring and he'll keep being devilishly handsome for everyone's benefit.

"Right, and then I say more patter, and wave my hands over the frame." The magician follows along as he narrates. "And if I do it in the right pattern and hit the right points, you step back two paces…"

Tony does, although he checks for trapdoors first.

"…and that happens," Dr. Frankenstein says unnecessarily.

The shape in the mirror has stepped out of it, matching Tony pace for pace.

And it's _not_ a reflection, the reversed image Tony sees in the mirror every morning. It's _him_ , to the life. The way his smile twists just a fraction of a bit on the left is on its left, not its right. The text on its shirt is printed the right way around. It's clearly three-dimensional, dynamic and fluid in its movements, and despite the light source behind it, there's not the slightest flicker, no indication at all of transparency.

It puts its hands in its pockets with just the right degree of nonchalance, and pulls out the red-tinted glasses Tony hasn't been wearingsince he left what turned out to be the Hilton after all, puts them on, and smirks his own media smirk back at him over the tops.

"How did it do that?" Tony can't help but ask, pointing. "Now _that_ is good. Predictive software? Data mining? Over and on top of the projection quality…"

He's actually shaken, but it's the deliciously shaken feeling of stepping out of a fast new car that runs smooth and beautiful and dreamy, and he wants to jump right back in and drive it further and faster in the genuine belief that it'll fly. This is _years_ beyond what he's got in his lab, with JARVIS to run it and the best projectors on the military-industrial market and some aftermarket specials he'd added himself.

He loves it and he wants it now, especially when he tries to walk around it – yeah, so he's checking himself out, he too is genuinely self-absorbed and deeply shallow – and it endures the inspection with a believable air of exasperated amusement, not just watching him, but reacting to him.

To hell with the uncanny valley; this thing is in the bottom of the Marianas Trench with a jackhammer and a copy of _Journey to the Center of the Earth_ , whistling while it works and all that.

Hi ho, hi ho, and _damn_ does this diamond shine.

That one MIT kid had been right the whole way; Tony can put a hand through it; it's not solid. And he does feel like he's put his hand on a Van de Graaff generator, even if a quick pat confirms that his hair isn't standing on end.

"In my show there's a chase scene and my volunteer and the illusion get all mixed up, and you don't care about that either." Dr. Frankenstein waves his hands over what must be a hidden control panel again, and the hologram blinks out.

"And how –" Tony manages to get out. If he's saying words at least he knows his jaw isn't hanging open, tongue lolling as he drools on his shoes.

"…does it work? I've no idea."

"Seriously?"

Dr. Frankenstein chews on his tongue for a moment. "Look," he says, "there's a guy around town who makes stuff like this, for the shows and such. And if it was anyone else you were asking about, I'd try to put you off taking them, because this? We need more stuff like this here. This is Las Vegas. We've got to be bigger and brighter and better than anywhere else. Tourists come here for the novelty, looking for something they can't find anywhere else."

"But?"

"If you find him, _don't_ tell him I said this, okay? I wouldn't put it past him to rig this –" He gestures at the mirror. "– to stop working if he decides he doesn't like me anymore. See, I read people. All magicians do. Gotta know our audience, be able to guess what they're thinking before they think it themselves, control what they notice, anticipate what they think, stay one step ahead of them. And you get a sense of people, you know? Even with the spotlights off.

"And _he…_ there's something not completely right about him. So if I knew where to find him, I'd tell you. Really. I would."

"Again with the but," Tony complains, grimacing.

"But I really have no clue how to find him. He just turns up sometimes. It's like he's allergic to phones. Or sense. Or consistency. Even for Vegas, he's out there."

Well, damn, because this sounds _exactly_ like Tony's kind of guy. If he didn't like eccentric geniuses, he wouldn't get out of bed in the morning.

Or whenever – or wherever – else he happened to wake up.

Stuff just happens, okay?

"Come on, man. Give me something," Tony insists. He's on the scent of something amazing here, something shiny and bright and brand-new and gorgeous, and he's going to hunt it down and make it his.

He could do _so_ much with something like this. The applications in stealth weaponry _alone_ would leave the company not just cornering the market but carving out a whole new one. What the Air Force would give for invisible planes; drones disguised as ducks; god _damn,_ camouflage suits…

The magician sighs, giving in. "He calls himself Loki. And I have _no_ idea where he's from. Or where he might be now. Really."

* * *

Dr. Frankenstein refuses to tell him anything more, but then Dr. Frankenstein isn't the only person in the room.

"Hey." The ponytailed stage assistant grabs his sleeve to get his attention. She's got it. "The guy you're asking about? What Merrick isn't telling you is that half of the magic community around here will sell him to you for pennies just to get rid of him, and the other half will run you out of town in feathers for trying to take him. Which is _exactly_ why I don't perform."

"I'd watch you," Tony volunteers gallantly, eying her up and not trying very hard to not get caught looking.

She gives him a very flat look in return. "And that he's almost pretty. For a _boy_."

"Well darn. I'd watch you anyway. And I'll still buy you a drink. No pressure, no expectations, no big deal. Seriously. I owe you one for earlier."

The suspicious look is heartbreaking. Tony's wounded. He puts a hand over his heart dramatically. "I can be serious."

Ponytail sighs. "Maybe food, not drinks? We're on our dinner break before the next show…"

"It's a date. Not a date. Forget I said that."

"I know things," one of the spangled girls puts her hand up and calls out. "You can buy me a drink."

Tony points a finger at her. "Yes. C'mon." And because he's a genuine certified genius, he checks the room and spots several other potential volunteers with leads to offer or, at the very least, drinks to mooch. "Open invitation. Thanks for the demo, Maestro. I'm gonna borrow your staff real quick."

It's been a while since he's spent any more time at Circus Circus than he's had to, but Ponytail – turns out her name is Miranda, she forbids him on pain of pain to call her Randy – condescends to take his arm and guide him.

"So," Tony asks the entourage that's accompanying them, "are we headed to steak and wine, or beer and pizza? Either works for me."

* * *

The entourage votes for pizza.

* * *

It is excellent pizza.

The servers, who are mercifully not dressed as clowns of any kind, set them up on Tony's tab with endless platters of cheese and sausage and onions and bacon and seven different kinds of peppers and some toppings that Tony doesn't even recognize and doesn't care in the slightest. Whatever it is, it's really good. The sound engineer asks for pineapple and the lighting engineer, clearly a relative, rags him unmercifully. Pitchers of beer within easy reach of the entire assembly of tables put blissful looks on the pretty faces of the thirsty showgirls and get people talking.

One of the great things about being the proverbial rich and famous, Tony's noticed, face on every magazine cover, name in all the news, is that people think they know you. He's not a stranger. They know who he is. And he wants them to talk to him. So they do. Instant familiarity, greased by shared food and drink; he might be a billionaire, but he looks just as ridiculous as anyone, wrestling with outrageously stretchy cheese, and Tony's perfectly willing to laugh at himself along with them.

He's only an asshole to people who deserve it.

The trouble is, there's so many of them.

The music is loud but not obnoxious – Miranda seems to have found the one place in Circus Circus that plays more than just the sort of carnival music that bores into the skull and lives in the cracks for the next decade and a half, seeping out unexpectedly like rust in a neglected engine. Shanelle who performs opposite Maestro Merrick sings along to a tongue-twister of a song that Tony has heard in movies but can't even keep the beat to with both hands, and she doesn't miss a single syllable. The entire restaurant applauds her, and she bows prettily, laughing, and toasts them all. A tiny little girl in a green baseball cap and garishly rainbow pajama-looking pants pops up in between the chairs, helps herself to a handful of pizza, and runs off back towards the arcade across the way, no doubt to baffle some distracted mom or dad with her prize.

Tony needs to throw more pizza parties and invite showgirls. There are lots of pretty people out on the casino floors, but they're beautiful here too, with alfredo sauce on their fingers and smeared stage makeup, laughing with their friends, cheeks pink from the warm and crowded room.

"…not _mean_ , not exactly," one of the stage assistants says over the objections of one of the actors. Tony's refilling his very tall beer glass and can't be held responsible for names. "If Merrick's being stupid, Loki's going to sayso, and you _know_ what Merrick's like when he hasn't gotten enough sleep. And I was helping out with that new show Cirque is working on, over at Treasure Island – I swear he was over there too, I heard that grabby bastard of a director, Evans, remember him? The guy they fired last month? Evans was yelling at him, and I didn't catch what Loki said back, but I wish I had! Bastard shut up like a slammed door. Now _that's_ magic."

"No, no, no," the actor argues, poking a slice of pizza at her. "Mean. Smart, and mean. Terrible combination."

"Never to us, though." Miranda elbows Tony, not terribly hard. "If I was going to pick a word, it'd be _aloof_."

She doesn't give him a chance to make the loof joke.

"I've worked on shows where he's around, fixing some detail or another, and I've seen him notice me. And that's exactly what it's like. Made a note. Filed it. Dismissed me. Moved on."

"He's a vampire," is the opinion of Lonnie, who collects keycards, and who once found a lost wallet with nothing at all in it but condoms.

This is briefly but enthusiastically debated.

Ultimately they decide _probably not_ , much to Tony's relief, but Lonnie is forgiven for thinking so, with much sympathy and an undercurrent of regret from certain quarters. And he does manage to finally get a physical description of a "cold, pretty boy": tall, long hair, green eyes, pale skin, "cheekbones to cut yourself on", according to…he's forgotten the lighting engineer's name…Jason?

"And he's British," Jason's brother or maybe twin – definitely Daniel, sound engineer for lots of shows, not just Maestro Merrick's – contributes, holding out his glass for a refill. Tony tops it up for him, draining the pitcher. A server takes it out of his outstretched hand almost immediately and makes it disappear. "I think. He's got the accent, at least. I can be up in the booth, head and shoulders in the wiring, and I'll know when he's shown up. Talks like he expects people to listen and do what they're told."

"Never answers his phone," says stage director Rachel, and the entire group starts laughing in a chorus of pure schadenfreude.

Jason tells a rather convoluted story about people Tony doesn't know and a singer he's never heard of. What Tony gets out of it, to his disappointment, is that no one knows how the props and devices that have made this Loki person a behind-the-scenes legend here actually _work_ , because the few people who have tried to take them apart to find out have discovered that if you even start doing that, they stop working.

Permanently.

And if this happens thirty minutes before curtain rises, and the only person who knows how to fix them won't answer his phone, and your show depends on them…you are mightily screwed.

"So how does anyone hire him to build things in the first place?" Tony interrupts an argument about whose fault that incident was. The consensus seems to be on the stagehand who _everyone_ knows is in hopeless worship-from-a-distance love with the singer, but assorted romantics who feel sorry for him are defending him. Neither side can figure out how, apparently, a platform that made the singer levitate, no wires known to be involved, could turn out to actually be a nicely carved but entirely empty box.

A general shrug goes around the table, which is quite delightful to watch, because several top-heavy people are still wearing revealing and spangly outfits.

"Word of mouth," Rachel says, resignedly. "I've been where you are, Mr. Stark. I spent three months trying to track him down once, and then four days after I gave up, I got a phone call from another magician I work with, asking if I could come by and work out the new routine because she _finally_ had the prop she needed…and there was Loki, prowling around checking lines of sight like he'd never been gone."

"Don't look like that," Shanelle pats Tony's hand comfortingly. Whatever he looks like, it must be a sight. "As weird people in show business in Las Vegas go… Well, I could tell you some stories."

"And I would love to hear them," he smiles invitingly at her. To the honeycomb agglomeration of tables, he adds, "Are you seriously telling me that in the twenty-first century in a city full of some of the most talented people on the planet, there's no way I can find someone I want to offer lots of money to come work for me? Hell, no bathroom wall I can write on? No agent I can leave a message with? No friends I can contact?"

Miranda says something, but Tony doesn't hear her, too distracted by the buzzing of his phone. "Hold that thought." When he double-checks – the buzz might be from the foamy, rich beer – the screen says _Pepper Potts._

There she is. He knew it wouldn't take long for her to reel him back in.

"Keep the pizza coming," Tony urges the servers as he extricates himself from the table, scattering apologies.

From the quietest corner he can find, he flips the phone open. "Hey, stranger."

Pepper is the single most efficient person Tony has ever met, and he's not at all surprised that she jumps right into business without letting him derail her. "Morehouse and Marley want tests done in a neutral location, since that brigadier is still insisting the flaw was in our design," she says as if they've been having this conversation all along. "I've called Amy at JPL and they're willing to let us borrow their wind tunnel if they can have the atmospheric data from the launch tests the Miami facility insisted on doing despite the weather conditions, yes or no?"

His brain is still changing channels, hunting through what's playing on a couple thousand cable options, so Tony goes for the reliable choice and stalls. "Good deal?"

He can almost see her, stylus hovering over the flatscreen, marshalling a list of things to get him to approve while she's got him cornered, or at least on the phone. She's probably working out of the upstairs living room, next to the waterfall and the stairs down to his lab, with the entire Pacific sweeping away behind her, red hair and slim suit framed against white leather and dark sea.

"Well, it's proprietary data, but it isn't doing anyone else any good, since every test flight crashed within a kilometer. I still can't get the flight director to tell me what he thought he was going to achieve, launching test craft into a hurricane, but yes, it's a reasonable trade."

Aha, he's remembered now. The helicopter turbine that had turned itself into a chunk of evil scrap metal, midair, with a particularly stroppy brigadier general on board. Rhodey had flown out and checked it over and found that there wasn't a maintenance record in sight, despite the base staff having been repeatedly and clearly told it needed servicing on a regular basis, and if they'd looked after it like they were supposed to, it would have been fine. The comparison test between the properly serviced example and the stand-in they'd recreated to match the unmaintained turbine. That one.

"Great, you know how much I like snooping around at NASA. Maybe I can pick up a hint on when they're finally going to open things up to the private sector, they've got to let me in eventually. Go for it."

"And done," Pepper confirms. He knows she'll sort it out the second he's off the phone, but before he can leave her to it, she continues on, "Castillo has been calling me every other hour, after _weeks_ of ignoring my calls, but he says he's got real proof that the satellite design was copied. Something about eggs in the code?"

"Easter eggs," Tony can't help but correct her. Castillo's a programmer, and despite how spacy he can be, he was the team lead on the satellite project, so if anyone knows where all the individual little tweaks and flourishes and signatures are in the stolen computer code, as unique as a fingerprint and as damning, he will.

"Yes, those. JPL had an opening, so you're dealing with both of them tomorrow. I'll send Happy to drive you back up, since you're going to cram in as much as you can between now and when he gets there. Where are you staying?"

He's not, actually. Hasn't bothered to check in anywhere, didn't slow down long enough for anything that practical. Just hit the Strip at top speed and lost himself in the noise and the crowds and the colors and the neon, sure that he'd have somewhere to land where he came up for air. An all-nighter in Vegas is the easiest thing: the lights _never_ go out. New York isn't the only city that never sleeps.

Caught up in thoughts of the projects he's left idle and the work he's delegated to others, Tony has momentarily forgotten his impulsive bit of headhunting. "No, no, no, it's fine. I'm not drunk and I'm wide awake and if I leave the Maserati here the valets are going to take it on joyrides all the way to the Grand Canyon and back and try to tell me it was for maintenance when I finally manage to get it back from them."

Car fiends, the lot of them.

"I'm coming back. Corner Castillo; tell him if he doesn't show up tomorrow, I'm assigning him to something really exciting like draping the arc reactor in cling film to make it change colors. Every week."

Pepper deadpans, "Yes, sir," but Tony imagines her smiling. That tiny expression he secretly likes being the cause of quite a lot, the hidden smile pressed flat like a little kid promising to keep a secret with lips locked tight and imaginary key thrown away.

It's not until he promises that he'll just be a couple of hours – and that he won't challenge any more Nevada Highway Patrolmen to races – and hangs up does he turn back to the pizza party and remember that he was in the middle of something.

Most of him says _oh well_ with a shrug.

But part of him looks up with stars in its eyes and begs for holograms so real Tony had thought for a moment that his reflection had come to life like a horror movie, and a puzzle to solve, and the half-imagined shadow of someone who can make the impossible real and nobody knows how, and who can apparently be devastatingly sarcastic _at the same time_.

"Change of plans, everyone," he tells the tables, sliding back into his seat between Miranda and Shanelle. "I would love to spend months running around Vegas, buying everyone in town drinks until this guy Loki bothers to turn up, because he sounds like someone I really want to meet and get him to show me what kind of bizarre engineering principles he works by. But the work I already have just called, so vacation's over."

Daniel toasts him with the end of his beer as someone checks their watch, groans at the time revealed there, and starts chivvying the Maestro's team into packing up to head back to their stage. "I can tip off some of my friends, if you're serious about trying to find one of our very own phantoms. Us locals, Vegas is all one big backstage drama pit, and it runs on gossip."

"You are the actual best," Tony praises him and the daisy-chain of volunteers whose goodwill he's bought with pizza and listening. "Spread the word."

He can't resist adding, "Phantom, huh? Who'm I gonna call?"

"No, you're not," Rachel says calmly. "He doesn't answer his phone."

The group awards her the laugh, and Tony cedes it to her gracefully enough.

* * *

He's miles out of Vegas, sleek Italian car humming contentedly at the empty road and the yawning desert stretching out between glittering islands, before his subconscious digs up and decodes Miranda's last wry comment on the sort of magician that Vegas magicians don't know what to make of.

She'd said, "Loki doesn't have friends."

* * *

"Hey JARVIS," Tony says a couple of days later, putting his feet up on his desk in the middle of the scrolling lines of computer code. The code makes his ratty sneakers flicker, and he notices far too late that there's a smear of oil on one of them, dripping onto the worktable, where he's _surely_ going to end up smudging it all over important papers. "Got a job for you, you up for it?"

" _I will do my best, sir,"_ the AI answers immediately.

"'Course you will, that's what I built you for. Unlike some robots I could mention." On a whim, he tugs off the offending shoe and throws it at Butterfingers. "Fetch, boy."

Butterfingers whirs uncertainly. Dammit. The _fetch_ command must have gotten lost under the last patch. "Never mind. C'mere a second, you. No, _not_ U. Butterfingers." Tony shoos – hah – U away before the other bot can run him over. That had seemed like such a clever name at the time.

" _Would you like me to display the latest schematics for your robots, sir?"_ JARVIS prompts.

"Actually, yes. And when you've done that, I need you to run a search for me."

The latest version of Butterfingers' source code and a wireframe model of the bot replace the satellite code. DUM-E wheels over to bob its head at the projection and bleeps in a puzzled sort of way when the picture doesn't respond.

Tony spins his chair in a circle idly. Spinny chairs are amazing, who was it invented the spinny chair? Benjamin Franklin? No, one of the other ones. He forgets. And anyway, that's not what he wants JARVIS to look up. "Great, now, I want you to look around online and see if the name 'Loki' means anything to you."

" _An unusual name,"_ JARVIS comments. _"Have you found a new project, sir?"_

"Maybe." With his head a little clearer and the sun up somewhere and most of his attention back on things he knows are real because half of them are calling him up on the phone complaining – or trying to, JARVIS screens more calls than Tony ever knows about and Pepper handles most of the rest – he's still really not sure. "What've you got?"

" _As I said, an unusual name. The source reference is from Norse mythology – a trickster god closely linked to their apocalypse myth, Ragnarok."_

"Heard that word before. In a video game somewhere, I think. I don't need fairy tales, JARVIS – ooh, is that him?"

JARVIS has found a picture somewhere, a richly colored drawing of a narrow-featured man with fire-flickering red hair, in a ragged cloak that's just as red, with a golden amulet around his neck. There's a tattered pattern of scars across his lips, but they're twisted into a smile regardless, and it's the sort of smile that means someone, somewhere, is about to get hurt – probably the pretty blond with the basket of apples that the drawing shows him talking to.

" _It is one image. The stories were first written down in the thirteenth century, but the oral tradition predates them by at least a millennium. There are carvings –"_

Tony cuts the AI off with a wave of his hand. "Modern day, JARVIS. I'm looking for someone using that name in the here and now, not seven to seventeen hundred years ago."

JARVIS has a few more suggestions, but it doesn't seem to have caught on as a given name. Once Tony tells him to rule out everyone from fiction – almost all versions of the red-haired trickster – the list narrows significantly and then dries out entirely.

"Didn't think it would be that easy, somehow. Keep an ear out for me, okay?"

Butterfingers finally manages to navigate around the knotty problem of a dropped spanner, and Tony holds the bot off with his shoeless foot. "Stop. Freeze. Halt. Dammit, I bet there's one parenthesis out of place somewhere. Or a dust bunny. Have you been catching flies, you dumb bot?"

Between the distraction of going over the robot line by line and piece by piece, and running a reassembled Butterfingers through an impromptu obstacle course Tony builds out of stacked coffee mugs and half-refurbished car engines, and the fact that the next human person he speaks to face-to-face is Pepper, risking the chaos of the workshop to remind him that he promised to talk to the reporter from _Bloomberg Businessweek_ at some point – which comes as a surprise to Tony – and that she's been putting the guy off for days – which doesn't –

…somehow it's the image of the redhead that sticks in the back of his mind.

* * *

Rhodey is a complete buzzkill when he's in uniform. Tony needs to get him to the poker tables stat and put that resigned, deadpan stare to some use.

And anyway, it had only been a tiny, tiny catapult built out of the wires he'd had in his pocket. He wasn't actually going to use it for anything. It had practically been a public service, as long as "the public" could be stretched to mean the assortment of industrialists and military technical officers sitting at his table. The bar had been out of reach, the presenter _could_ _not stop talking,_ and Tony had glanced up from his tinkering to see most of the table watching him out of the corners of their eyes, desperate for a distraction.

So wiring in the watch battery had been a mistake. So it had set a single corner of a napkin slightly on fire. So what? Hadn't even set off the fire alarm. Hadn't knocked the presenter out of his monotone for a second.

Rhodey had still kicked him under the table the moment he'd stuck one scorched finger in his mouth.

Tony had, of course, kicked him back.

"No, no, no," Tony refuses as the auditorium empties. "No. I'm done for the day. Tell you what. Cut class with me for the last session, and I'll be on my absolute best behavior during my panel tomorrow. No mic drops, no interrupting unless they're being really stupid, no bringing my own glass of whiskey, no enlisting showgirls from the floor to pretend to be planes. Deal?"

It's a really good deal. Rhodey knows him well enough to take it. "Fine. You got any alternate plans?"

"C'mon, Rhodey. This is me. Of course I have plans."

"Not poker," Rhodey insists as he's dragged along in Tony's wake. He's not resisting very hard. "Not with the goddamn World Series in town and every idiot who watches poker on TV and owns a pair of wraparound glasses thinking he's an expert."

They end up at the blackjack tables at Caesar's instead. A few hands in, as the other players move on, Tony beckons over the dealer.

"Do me a favor? Quick question. Not even inappropriate."

"And what would that be?" she asks as the table begins to fill again.

"Last time I was in Vegas, I was looking for a guy – not like that – maybe you've heard of him? Builds things for the magic circuit, props and the like. Name's Loki, or at least that's what he was calling himself last I heard. Anything ringing any bells?"

She shakes her head, baffled. "I don't know anyone like that. But I'm slightly new. Does he work here at Caesar's?"

"No idea." Tony tips her a chip for her time anyway, not even looking to see which denomination it is. "No big deal. Next round!"

While the skinny woman in the gold and blue dress chews on her lip and tries to decide whether she wants another card or not, Rhodey leans over and asks over the noise of the people shouting at the video poker machines, "What was that about?

He's still not sure. "Might be a wild goose chase. Last time I was here I saw this really incredible visual effect in a magic show, and even when I got a good look at it, up close and personal, I couldn't figure out how it was done. No one seems to know where to find the guy who invented it, but I want it, so I've got to find him first."

"So let me get this straight." Rhodey taps a finger on the backs of his cards. "You're looking for one person in all of Las Vegas, and your strategy is to ask random people if they've heard of him by a name that sounds made-up."

Tony's martini has an olive in it. He doesn't remember ordering that. He eats it anyway. "More or less."

There are so many card dealers and wheel spinners and bartenders in this room _alone_. He sets a personal goal to ask at least twenty of them.

It's a tough job, staying focused that long with temptation shimmering from every angle, but someone has to do it.

Presumably.

He's never, ever heard Rhodey say it, but the expression on his friend's face might best be described as _oy vey_. "Okay, man. You do that."

"He sounds like fun," Tony objects through a second olive. Someone has really gone crazy with the olives. Where are they coming from? There had not been a second olive a minute ago. "You remember fun, right? This thing? That you do?"

"Shut up, Tony. And when your fun explodes or slaps you with a restraining order – again – don't come running to me. Hit him with another card already, would you?"

No one goes near his glass during Rhodey's narrow-eyed death match with the dealer. But somehow there's a _third_ olive.

Tony just doesn't know anymore.

* * *

He very nearly misses that panel because he's only halfway down his list of magic shows and special-effects-heavy acts that his mystery illusionist has apparently been involved with.

But he's supposed to talk about the new line of surface-to-air missile countermeasures to a bunch of people he's not allowed to refer to in public as army men, so Rhodey hauls him back to the convention center.

Those creases are _never_ coming out of his tie.

* * *

Work and the fact that he was in Japan kept him away from Vegas at Halloween. Maybe next year.

The Bellagio fountains are playing something stirring and familiar-sounding, submerged spotlights snapping through rainbow hues right on the beat, jets of water lancing into the air like a conductor with a garden hose rather than a baton. That would have been so much better than the real concert benefit for the music conservatory he'd found himself at last week. Tony actually likes a limited amount of classical music – the _math_ , people, the _math_ , no one appreciates– he just really dislikes the sort of people who float around at receptions for it, expecting him to know a sonata from a symphony and getting all indignant when he starts talking about reconfiguring the audio equipment for grunge rock bashes into concert halls.

He knows this one, though. It shows up on his playlists sometimes, makes him want to hit things with a wrench and wave it around. Some movie somewhere…

 _Ride of the Valkyries_ , that's it.

 _Valkyries_ leads him to _Vikings_ , _Vikings_ gets him to _wait why was I thinking about Vikings recently_ and then to _mythology_ , which is how he ends up at _dangerous-looking redhead_ and remembers again.

Just for kicks and giggles and because the music has turned into something slow and unenthusiastic – but probably very artistic – that he doesn't know, he works his way northward up the Strip to Circus Circus, going back to his original lead.

Maestro Mysterio Merrick is still performing, based on the sign, but in the glimpse he gets of the between-shows venue, he can't spot any of his pizza friends.

Moved on, he supposes. New jobs, new people to deal with; the Vegas Strip is a world to itself and one always in flux.

He doesn't linger under the big top. Instead he wanders back south to Imperial Palace to check on their car collection, something else that's always changing.

He's making an absolute fanboy scene of himself over a cherry-white 1920's Duesenberg, lovingly repainted and refurbished, that he probably definitely shouldn't buy – they'd sell it to him, but he's already got three cars in various states of strip-down scattered across the garage, and he just knows he'll end up machining parts from scratch – when a woman in a Treasure Island dealers' uniform picks her way out of the parking garage elevator and makes for him with intent.

"Hi, gorgeous," Tony greets her – subtlety is for other people.

"You're Tony Stark, right?" she asks, and answers her own question at once. "I mean, of course you are, you're, I mean, I've seen you on TV and in _People_ and here you are, so – sorry. Sorry." She collects herself visibly and starts over. "There's a rumor going around that you're looking for someone here on the Strip."

Score! Maybe. Rumor is a fickle thing, as Tony knows all too well – _People_ just makes stuff up about him now.

"Actually, yeah," he answers cautiously. "You offering to help out?"

She looks around nervously. "I have to be on shift in a few minutes, so I can't go get him right away…"

Tony doesn't move. "So just tell me where to find him, I can introduce myself. And while we're at it, do you even know who I'm looking for?"

Her glare must have been honed on people who beg for do-overs at the roulette table. "That magician Loki, right? The one David Copperfield tried to hit with a chair?"

"Oh, I want to hear that story," Tony says immediately, taking a few steps towards her.

"For starters, he missed. From about six inches away."

Tony _has_ to meet this guy. "Yeah, you've got my attention. Can you tell me where I can find him or not?"

She waffles and teases and promises a bit more, but Tony isn't that gullible and people try this, or a variation on this, out on him all the time. Any second now she's going to ask to be paid for the information, and while Tony will happily do so, he's more of a cash on delivery man.

Promises are cheap.

Promises are _free_.

And he's getting the distinct feeling that if he follows this woman anywhere, he's going to end up hitting the speed-dial for 911 hard enough to break it, and then Pepper _and_ Obie _and_ Happy will gang up on him trying to make him accept more bodyguards, and he doesn't like even Happy hovering over him at the best of times.

Las Vegas is a pretty safe place – it's in their best interest to be, after all. The casinos that made the city's reputation aren't run by _total_ idiots. But only if you're reasonably smart.

Fortunately, there's no easier place to stay in the light.

"Your loss," the woman probably not from Treasure Island snarls at him eventually, and high-heel-stomps back into the elevator.

He doubts it, but at least word is still getting around.

Now, about the Duesenberg…

* * *

Tony refers to the Consumer Electronics Show as Candyland just to make Obie sigh loudly.

They've really outdone themselves this year, but whoever worked out the schedule must have been some sort of fitness demon, because all the events and panels and demos Tony wants to get to are scattered across _four_ different venues. He finds himself part of a pack of engineers and geeks and nerds and programmers and technical people, running from boardrooms to conference halls to auditoriums to stages to dealer's rooms in a mad and laughing crowd. Video game music and explosions blare from on high as convention-goers try to snipe each other into virtual clouds of red mist on the giant screens.

Bill manages not to do a complete faceplant onto his demo this year, despite the cluster of Apple fanboys chanting "Blue-Screen! Blue-Screen! Blue-Screen!" and doing a complex multimodal wave – the regular old Wave is for football chumps – in what's probably going to be repackaged and sold as an iVoodooRitual next year.

If the plasma screens get any bigger, they're going to stop being screens and start being walls. A rumor springs up from somewhere that Samsung's got a brand-new HD remaster of _Return of the King_ showing on their just-short-of-IMAX screen somewhere upstairs. Tony doesn't join in the storming of the escalators, but he does get video footage from a balcony, complete with the guy barely maintaining the lead somehow managing to scream out most of Theoden's battle-of-Minas-Tirith suicide charge speech at the same time.

Maybe he's the lousy snitch who leaks that video to the cutthroat lady chemist Stark Industries lost to Samsung last year, which might be how the impromptu LARPers ended up watching themselves rather than their favorite movie.

But no one can prove that.

Candyland.

…but so much of it seems familiar. Newer and better versions of last year's stars; bigger screens; smaller devices; alternate formats of the same idea. Variations on a theme.

There _has_ to be more to what's possible. New ground, not just a shinier cell phone with even fewer buttons than the last one.

Tony can't shake the feeling that they're grinding across No Man's Land, digging new trenches, just the same as the old trenches, and all the while airplaneswait on the horizon for someone to throw down his shovel and run.

He desperately needs to escape from an entirely one-sided conversation about GPS devices and their convertibility into missile guidance systems with the sort of fanatic who's too focused on talking to Tony's left ear to listen to his objections that every GPS ever built has been rigged with failsafe measures to keep them from being used for just that purpose. The fanatic is convinced that there's a fault. Tony assures him that he'll look into it and makes a break for freedom and sanity, probably only seconds before being treated to a theory about how the aliens are going to hijack the satellites and use GPS signals to take over everyone's cars and drive them into lakes and off bridges in some mass social experiment.

"Mr. Stark?" someone asks.

"Good timing," he replies without bothering with little details like who they are. "Quick, walk with me, before he catches up again."

The man laughs good-naturedly and follows along. "Here," he says, offering Tony a phone that clearly isn't one of the latest models on display and, in some cases, being fought over. He wonders if Obie's still down there.

"It's a phone. So? Who are you?"

"I'm Dante Pearson. I'm an assistant director with Cirque. I'm working on KÁ, at the MGM Grand? And it's a phone _number_ ," he corrects, sounding too pleased to be pedantic. "One you've been looking for, I believe."

Tony gives him a second look, and then a third. "No way."

Pearson snorts. "Loki's driving me crazy. Please take him. You don't have to give him back, either."

"Can I? Thanks." When he takes the phone and looks at the screen, the address book entry is for _smartass illusionist_. That seems about right. Still sounds like Tony's kind of guy.

Since Pearson makes no move to take the phone back, Tony presses _Call_ and listens to it ring, wondering for the first time what he's going to say to this man. It's been months; he should have thought of that by now.

Aw, hell. He'll wing it.

The phone rings. It keeps ringing.

"You sure about this?" Tony asks, putting a hand over the speaker reflexively, like there's anyone on the other end to overhear.

"It worked yesterday…"

After a minute of increasingly halfhearted rings, the line cuts out and a canned voice starts up the _"We're sorry, your call cannot be completed as dialed…"_ spiel.

Tony says a mildly bad word, as words go.

Pearson reclaims the phone, looking annoyed. "Really? Seriously?" He calls again just in case, a scowl marching across his face. "Shit. No, no, no, he's got to finish setting up that rope stunt, or we're in trouble. _I don't know how to debug it,_ someone's going to get _hurt._ Double shit. If he's thrown another phone out the window…"

"That's a thing?"

"Seen him do it."

"Well, damn," Tony agrees, just as he spots Obadiah finally escaping from the fistfight-in-the-making over phones. Phones. They've got to get in on the phones thing before next year. Even if it's another thing everyone else is doing, Stark Industries should at least do it better, show them all how it's done. "Hey, I gotta run. But thanks for trying, man."

* * *

By Monday morning he is A) very hungover and B) not at all sorry. He needs coffee. And a new skull. It's really too bad both probably involve getting out of bed.

After careful examination through barely-open eyes shielded by a fold of the sheet, he determines that this is _not_ one of the hotels that keep a hot tub right next to the bed, which is the kind of thing you only find in Vegas and that you only find by accident once before keeping a very wary eye on all unknown floors from then on out.

His head feels like someone has dropped a marching band into a locker room and jammed it all into a blender, and it's a terrible and mind-boggling fact that his brain can feel exactly like a pile of dirty socks. The suite is _very_ bright, some complete idiot has left the curtains open, but it smells like coffee and other assorted breakfast-type things, and that's worth groping his way through the light like a caffeine-oriented zombie in pursuit of percolating elixir of life.

What would a coffee zombie say, anyway? "Grounds"?

The great gods Michael Faraday and James Maxwell must be watching over him in lieu of Pepper, who's running the store back in some slightly more restrained bit of civilization, because he doesn't remember ordering room service. Maybe last night? He doesn't remember coming back to the room, either, so anything's possible. There were the closing ceremonies, and then the afterparty, and someone started talking about Sapphire… Everything after that is a blur of lights overhead and the laughing crowds in the tunnel of…Fremont Street, yes, with the neon canopies, and the roaring beat of very loud music.

But there's a tray of bread and fruit and bacon and sticky pastries waiting for him, and a carafe of coffee, still steaming hot, which he pours out into the nearest mug-shaped object without bothering to ask silly questions about where it came from or, at that, whether or not this is actually a mug.

It takes half a mug – evidence suggests that it is one after all – to wash the sticky, thudding, sluggishly spinning feeling out of his brain and leave him feeling human enough to look around and take stock without having to hold a hand over his eyes.

So it's only then that he notices the complete stranger sprawled out across one of the couches, watching Tony stare back at him with shameless amusement.

 _Who the hell are you?_ gets lost somewhere between Tony's brain and his mouth; to be fair, there are other nerves along his spine connected to other parts of his body. They have a vote too, and they're saying _that's pretty, we want one, give us that and keep it._

No, no, no. Bad nerves. Bad skin prickling all over at the true-green eyes sweeping over him, sizing him up and taking him apart like an underperforming engine, even if there's not an inch of that skin in sight. He's still even got yesterday's socks on.

With this stranger's eyes on him, Tony's never been more grateful than he is now for falling asleep in last night's suit.

Which he still has _on_ , which means he hasn't forgotten getting his hands on pale skin nearly glowing in the reflected sunlight before that light slinks away to die in a loose deep-green shirt and what he can't help noticing are much more form-fitting leather pants.

Mouth still not working. More coffee will help.

Gulping the last couple of mouthfuls of cooling coffee – how long was he staring? – Tony again tries to get _who the hell are you?_ lined up and on the move.

Regardless, what he actually says is, "I was not that drunk last night. You, I would remember. How the hell did you get in here?"

The man smiles. Bits of Tony's brain are yelling for attention, but the rest of him has been thrown out of alignment and is still shaking itself together. No, it's a smirk, just the edge of one, and it still says that someone, somewhere, is going to get hurt.

"Magic," says Loki.

* * *

 _To be continued._


	3. Viva Las Vegas

ON WITH THE SHOW!

 **Chapter Three: Viva Las Vegas**

 _one_

Tony's never seen anyone peel an orange with a knife before.

Well, not and get away with it. He just knows that if he tried that, everything would go horribly wrong at once and he'd end up with something that looked like DUM-E had been playing with the blender again.

 _This_ guy isn't even looking at what he's doing, fine-boned, quick-moving hands slicing rind away from fruit in a long, tidy coil without spilling a drop of juice or blood, miniature knife flickering like that's a totally unremarkable thing to be doing in someone else's hotel room at ridiculous-o'clock in the morning. All his attention seems to be focused on Tony, as bright and sharp as the blade.

"That's not a real answer," Tony objects in lieu of actual thought; he hasn't accepted _magic_ as a valid reply since he was three.

The stranger rolls his eyes, a flick away before returning to a gaze like a long cool needle pinning Tony down to be dissected. As he does so, the last bit of orange peel falls, caught by swift fingers and disappearing somehow.

"So what do you want?" the man asks. There's a crisp, educated-sounding accent in his voice that Tony is going to have to label British for lack of anything better.

"Shouldn't that be my line?" And almost as importantly, why has he not called for security? There's a phone not a step away, with a straight line to management on a speed dial designed for people who need help and don't need to waste time figuring out how to get it, and across the room there's a stranger with a _knife_ who should not be in here, and hell if it's not the first time someone's taken issue with Stark Industries or the U.S. military or the government in general or Tony Stark, billionaire party boy and Merchant of Death and happy enough about both, in particular.

He really hates it when that happens, not so much because anyone's ever managed to hurt him than because it means hearings and paperwork and worried, well-meaning people insisting that he needs a full-time bodyguard rather than a onetime boxer on his personal staff and sparring sessions to offset his tendency to park himself at his workbench and work himself into immobility.

Yes, it's the potential paperwork, and not that his intruder's an incredibly striking pretty boy, that's keeping Tony from the phone.

"I'm not the one making a nuisance of myself," the man with the knife says, kissing orange juice from his fingers – and now Tony can't even call him that, because the knife has vanished, presumably into the same pocket or fold of that shirt as the peel.

"Well, excuse the hell out of me for being in my own hotel room," Tony deadpans. "Who the hell are you, and seriously, how did you get in here?" He takes another look and doesn't regret it.

The man has the angular features of a half-starved supermodel, but Tony's willing to bet that there are muscles under that shirt and strength in those long legs. A woven leather bracelet coils around his left wrist, and a single green stud earring winks like a third eye, miniscule facets gleaming in the morning sunlight. There's an air of cold stone to him, jade eyes and marble skin and an obsidian sheet of long hair; it's a face that could have been carved with a ruthless chisel. No, not stone but gleaming steel, dyed in the forge – the stranger has a magnetism that says _look_ and likes it. He's arranged himself with nonchalant ease, one booted foot propped on the opposite thigh and now-empty hand resting along the back of the couch, slim fingers tapping absently.

The skinned and subdivided orange in the other hand looks absurdly out of place; the color scheme doesn't match at all.

"There is no way I brought you home with me last night," Tony agrees with himself. "Not that I wouldn't have, I mean, look at you, but I _know_ I'd remember you."

Genuine amusement breaks into the smirk, and jade-green eyes flash with laughter. "You said that out loud."

"I know I –" Tony starts, and reconsiders, stopping mid-word. "I did say that out loud." _Shit_. Ah, screw it, there don't seem to be any panting reporters around, unless he missed those storming in here too, and if this guy wants to complain about appropriate behavior, well then Tony has dibs, dammit, and he'll see that accusation and raise.

"Am I even saying words? Are you even here? Maybe I'm imagining you." His imagination needs a pat on the back and a raise, if so. Also a stern talking-to. "I have not had enough coffee to deal with this. You. Today. Any of it."

One long-fingered hand gestures elegantly to the waiting coffee pot, and a single eyebrow arches, combining to give the stranger the air of someone repeatedly pointing out a scrap of meat they've dropped on the floor to a cat that just won't stop begging for the food still in the pan.

"Oh, wow, I never would have noticed that. Especially given the mug already in my hand and all. Thank you so very, very much for your helpfulness. Now what the hell kind of intruder breaks into someone else's hotel room to lounge around on their couch and order room service?"

Seriously. What the hell.

"I didn't ask for this to be here," the man says, looking at the tray still on the table as if he's never seen it before. "You did."

Tony briefly wonders if – but no. No way. Scraps of memory are working their way out of last night's blackout haze and he distinctly remembers squinting at the cuff of his shirtsleeve, where he'd written his room number – hey, this is the Bellagio, excellent, they do really fantastic pastries – and taking three tries to get the swipe key through the scanner. He remembers stepping on the toe of one of his socks and congratulating himself for not falling all the way over, and then trying to replicate it a few steps later so he could do an epic pratfall on the incredibly comfortable mattress.

Nowhere in there had he picked up a phone. And he's still not picking one up now, despite knowing that he should.

"I did not," he denies instead.

This wins him a dismissive wave. "Certain people are under the impression that you did. Voices on the telephone could belong to anyone, after all." The stranger unfolds himself from the couch in a single seamless movement and crosses the room before Tony can react, and suddenly he's only the width of the table away.

Observations confirmed; the man is exactly as tall as Tony estimated, easily two meters probably even without the boots, and he should recoil, he should at least step backwards, should have alerted someone to the weirdness coiling out around him, but that gaze has him bolted to the floor –

The stranger steps backward again, laughter in his eyes, and admits, "I'm a capable mimic, when I want to be. I might make a better you than you, if I tried."

It's not until the green-eyed man moves out of Tony's space again, turning away to prowl towards the window and the view of the half-scale Eiffel Tower right across the street, does Tony realize that he's taken the bacon biscuit, the exact one Tony had designs upon, right out from under his hand and replaced it with the orange.

Tony thinks bad words at him; he doesn't appear to notice.

"Okay, this has been fun, let's not do it again sometime, but I'm well and truly confused. Congratulations, you've stumped me. Or this coffee is defective. Or decaf." He takes another drink from the mug he doesn't remember refilling. But no, his eyelids are prickling with the shot of caffeine. Not decaf. "You invited yourself into my room, and I still don't know how –"

Maybe the lock is broken.

 _Obviously_ the lock is broken.

Caffeine powers, activate!

Backing away while still trying to keep the stranger in view – yes, that's why he's staring, of course – Tony opens the door to the hallway and peeks at the lock. It blinks a locked-looking shade of red at him.

That looks like it's supposed to, and when he tries to turn the handle, it refuses to move.

Okay, so the lock probably isn't broken, but he's not willing to lock himself out to find out. For one thing, his uninvited guest is watching him with poorly suppressed amusement, as if he's waiting for Tony to get himself trapped on the wrong side of the door just so he can laugh.

Tony's known this guy for all of five minutes, and Tony already knows that he would _absolutely_ laugh at someone dumb enough to do that.

He was talking, wasn't he?

"– and just to make things weirder, you ordered me broken coffee." It's wonderful coffee. Maybe if he actually calls room service, they'll get him a bag to take home. "Hang on." Tony shuts the door and returns to the table so he can put the coffee mug down and scrub at his eyes, trying to press his brain back into shape. "Starting over. Brain rebooting."

When he opens his eyes again, the man is still there. Dark hair, pale skin, razor cheekbones, English accent, contrary nature, sharp eyes.

"Wait a second," Tony says.

"Or perhaps you'd prefer to go back to sleep until you've recovered your wits?" the man mutters, a comment Tony ignores for the sake of staying at least marginally focused.

"I know who you are. You're Loki. You have to be."

Loki – aha! – doesn't deny it, merely closes his eyes like he's rolling them and doesn't want to be seen doing it. "I thought you were supposed to be clever."

"Hey," Tony says defensively. "It's early for a game of Guess Who. Couldn't you just call me like a regular person? I've been trying to find you for months."

Loki doesn't have to say _do I seem like a regular person to you_ for Tony to hear it, clear as a klaxon. The silence speaks for itself.

"I know," Loki replies once he's sure Tony's gotten the message. Now that he's moving he seems unable to hold still, circling like a shark. "I'm tired of being chased around to be told that _you_ are looking for me. I can't get anything done without someone tugging on my sleeves to pass on a message I've heard a score of times, and it's very annoying. If I wanted anything to do with you, I'd have tracked you down before now. And it wouldn't have taken _me_ months."

The last word sounds like it should be in sarcastic air-quotes, but that's an image Tony already can't make work. Not from this man, arrogance and grace bleeding from him, half aristocrat and half diva.

Well, bully for you, Tony doesn't say. He doesn't let anything short of being slapped deter him from something he wants, and he really wants the secrets locked up in this man's head. And while the words are cutting and dismissive, the fact remains that a simple, "Shove off," on the street would have sufficed.

Probably. Although Tony would have chased him down and tugged on his sleeve some himself.

"And yet here you are in my hotel room," Tony continues his train of thought aloud. "Helping yourself to what seems to be my breakfast. Wait, wait! Don't go."

Prowling around has turned into walking dismissively towards the door, and he _knows_ that if he lets Loki disappear he'll never, ever find him again, and that incredible holographic technology he seems to have exclusive access to will keep on being wasted on making starry-eyed vacationers go "Ooh!", and there is so much more potential there that Tony's just panting to get at and start spinning off in a hundred different ways.

They could dazzle the world, if he can only keep Loki from walking out of this room.

So Tony plants himself between magician and door, folding his arms stubbornly for a second before thinking better of it and reaching them out, hands open and upturned, in what he hopes is an appealing manner.

"I just wanted to say," he says slowly, as Loki stops and eyes him up and down not like an obstacle but with distant interest – listening, at least – "your work, the holograms, the projections I've seen, fantastic. Stunning. How do you do it?"

For a breathless moment he thinks he hasn't been heard, but then Loki reaches out and pulls one of the breakfast table chairs towards him, folding himself into it with his back to the sunlit window and without breaking eye contact for a moment.

He's listening, that says.

Tony breathes out again and follows suit, bringing his cup of coffee with him.

"And you imagine I'm just going to tell you that?" Loki asks as Tony sits down and fortifies himself with more caffeine.

"No, no, no, no!" Tony protests. "No, I want to hire you!"

This makes that eyebrow go up again. Someone has seen far too much original _Star Trek_ , and Tony is jealous. He's been trying most of his life to be able to do that, and he was heartbroken when he stumbled over a journal article that claimed the ability was genetic.

He'd announced to Pepper – from the floor – that life wasn't fair, and also that the ceiling would be a good place for more shelves if he built a tool-fetching robot with a telescoping arm to add to the rest of his robot army, and she'd handed him forms to sign.

"Whatever you want to come work for me, I'll get it for you. Name your price. I'm good for it. Credit for the advances, the technology, all yours. What I've seen of your work, and I have been looking –"

"I'm well aware," Loki interrupts. "People keep telling me. I'm tired of hearing your name, Stark."

Tony's on a roll, and he can't help but grin. "But you just said it."

He's happy to live with that sarcastic glare if it means Loki's willing to hear him out, and the magician hasn't moved, is still just watching him with what seems to be faintly exasperated amusement.

"Seriously though. I thought realistic holograms were ten years away, minimum, and honestly, I thought I'd be the one to get there. I have some in my lab at home, but they're not a patch on yours. First time I saw what you're doing here, I went home and realized all my cutting-edge stuff was obsolete. Chilling." He's getting more and more excited as he talks, delighted, full of ideas, caught up in the rush of something _new_. It's what he lives for, balancing on that edge and taking one step further, and whether it's pushing the engine to eat up another tick on the speedometer of a sports car or trimming the fins of a missile so it hits a moving bullseye from sixty kilometers away or shoving all his chips into a pile and daring the table to come and get them, he loves it.

"You're so far ahead of the curve I'm not even sure what road you're on!" Tony enthuses, waving his hands like there might be a steering wheel to grab before he realizes what he's doing and putting them down again. But he doesn't miss that Loki watches his hands like he'd seen the imaginary shape there. "And you've got what, a workroom somewhere?"

He imagines a warehouse full of old props and scattered pieces, mirrors angled for light, different kinds of stage lighting rigged up around the room, areas of deliberate chaos in the midst of clutter, a thousand potential projects waiting to be taken apart and made new, magic from technology.

In his mind's eye, it looks like somewhere he'd want to be. Not unlike the happy disorder of a big machine stripped down to its components and put together again, but better now.

Yeah, he can see this man in the midst of it, tuning something delicate and precise with careful attention.

Maybe he can get an invite.

"It's amazing," Tony rattles on, hoping something's resonating. "And this is coming from me. I know amazing, I work on amazing every day. Anything, honest. Come work for me, and whatever they're paying you here, I'll outbid them, just – please? C'mon. I'm offering you a blank check here."

If he's expecting anything, he's expecting a counteroffer, a protest, an objection to the work Stark Industries _does_ – it's no secret that they're the military's biggest defense contractor, and that they make not just weapons but the best and deadliest ones, and people, especially people who live surrounded by ease and fantasy and have time and luxury to fret about the feelings of people who try to kill American soldiers, sometimes have a problem with that.

Shame the patriotism speech probably won't work on someone with that Masterpiece Theater voice.

"Why?" Loki finally asks, just as Tony's about to launch into the patriotism speech preemptively.

"Why not?" he can't help but snap back.

For that, he gets another glare that doesn't just say _dumbass_ but shout it, and a bad combination of an ill-timed blink and the sun that lances into his eyes – of course – means Tony somehow misses how Loki ends up at the door again so quickly.

And – later he'll laugh, realizing it was the first of many times – he finds himself chasing after an infuriating, impossible magician with a razor smile, running to keep up. "Wait, no, I – sorry, that was a real question, I'm dumb, my bad."

Loki sighs audibly, closes the door again, and leans against it with his arms folded and one boot balancing on its toe, the very picture of fraying patience. His glare challenges Tony _do better, because you're running out of chances here_.

"Look," Tony says, grimacing, "I build things that blow up, right?" No point hiding that, it's not a secret. "And I can make them blow up bigger, and I can make them blow up more precisely, and I can make them fly faster and further. But it's all variations, right? I know there's more out there, and I'm always looking for it. And you –"

There is something here. He knows it. He's standing in Las Vegas, isn't he? He's got to be willing to gamble.

"Maybe I'm a chump and I just didn't spot the wires and the mirrors," he admits. "But if I didn't, and I don't think I did… You got my attention months ago, and I've kept looking, doesn't that count for anything? Whatever's out there on the edge, I wanna be part of it, and that's where your work is for sure. Sufficiently advanced technology is _better_ than magic, and if the magic's what you love, then great, but the good that we could do with that technology, you and me? Phenomenal."

He takes a breath, checks the imperturbable jade gaze still waiting for him to do better. "I can think of at least fifty-four things I could do with cohesive holograms alone, never mine what _else_ you're capable of with all the resources and research I want to shovel at you. Fifty-five now. The entertainment value is astounding, and the defensive applications – if you're cool with that, by the way, it's not a deal-breaker if you're not, we can work around it – are out of this world."

Maybe he's pleading; if it works it'll be worth it, and if not there's no one else here to see. "At least give me a shot? Come work for me, and I'll make sure you have anything you want. Promise."

Loki…laughs.

It's not a very good sound. Not a mad-scientist cackle, not the mockery of someone who's gotten away with fooling the gullible rich guy, not ambitious anticipation. It's short and bitter and cold, barely worthy of the name.

"What I want," Loki says, as if this is the first serious thing he's said all morning, "you can't give me."

Something about that laugh bites deep, but Tony buries it down there and brazens on through. "I bet I can come pretty close."

Loki's eyes are hard and skeptical, his smile twisted and _hungry_ , almost; those long fingers have tightened so hard on his bicep that his knuckles are white.

"No," he says.

He's out the door before Tony can say a word to stop him, but he stops himself, pausing in the doorway. And damn, but he's striking in profile, Tony can't help but notice, long hair framing that grace note of emerald and shadows lurking across the bones of his face. He could pick this man's face out of any crowd, he knows, and he will be looking.

"But ask me again, later."

And somehow Tony is not surprised that when he gets the door back open and looks down the hallway, not more than a second later, there's no one there.

* * *

Of course he has other things to do, and he does them.

Not that he hadn't _finally_ called the front desk and asked if they'd let anyone matching Loki's description in, possibly with a master key, and been met with a wall of incomprehension and denial that they would do any such thing, they're the _Bellagio_ , they're the most exclusive and elegant and high-class hotel on this Strip of gimmicks and false facades and larger-than-life parodies. The various people Tony had talked to had held that line until he finally found a manager who'd listened to Tony's increasingly frustrated story and then burst out laughing.

" _That_ one," she'd said, in exactly the same voice Tony's heard from Maestro Merrick and a handful of other locals since. "That one does whatever he wants and no one knows what to make of him. Loki does tend to turn up in places he's not expected, but breaking into hotel rooms is a new one on me." She'd shaken her head. "I didn't even think he knew the casinos _were_ hotels. Best of luck, sir. We're not responsible for him. No one is."

Tony had accepted a bag of the really good coffee beans as an apology and watched the passing parade in vain until Obie had found him and distracted him with talk about the self-powered display screen that had been the talk of the show and how they could possibly hire away one or two of the engineers from Phillips behind it.

There are always other things to do. There are Board meetings to attend, and tours of Air Force labs to be escorted on, and the metallurgist out in Florida who's convinced she's invented microwaveable aluminum foil to visit.

The aluminum foil works no matter how long they zap it for. Tony praises her as a genius and a savior of humankind, or at least the portion of humankind that persistently puts aluminum foil in microwaves, because they desperately needa savior, and sets her up with Pepper to spin her and her staff off into a subsidiary company, but not before challenging them to make it recyclable too.

It makes a really great line the next time someone tries to call him to task for war profiteering, especially because Pepper tricks him into appearing on a talk show without warning him first. Talk show audiences love household conveniences, the marketers tell him, usually while he's building circuits out of paper clips.

The late-night comedy results of unexpected talk show appearances are her own damn fault when Pepper doesn't give him enough time to prepare. Coincidentally, "preparing remarks for television" happens to take the exact same amount of time as "preparing escape routes and mysteriously appearing prior commitments".

JARVIS protests at being told to screen Pepper's phone calls for talk show producers. Tony tells the AI to hush up and do it, as long as she's on the clock it _is_ his business, actually, and if he ends up on one more set with a laugh track, he's going to start packing his own sound effects.

* * *

 _two_

He's heading across the Strip with the vague intention of seeing if there's any good music playing at the MGM Grand, people-watching as much as anything and melting back into a rough approximation of a human being rather than a lump of ice after a visit to the military radar stations in Alaska, when someone taps him on one shoulder.

"I don't –" he starts, turning around, and forgets how that sentence was going to end, for a moment totally dumbstruck, because the man sharing the totally superfluous small-scale replica of the Brooklyn Bridge with him is someone he genuinely believed he'd never see again, and _hell yeah_ , round two is _on_!

"Don't what?" Loki asks, of course, and it's an excellent thing that he's not really a vampire, because that would be a terrible waste. The desert sun strikes life into marble skin and makes his hair burn in a way that really _justifies_ the term "blackbody", and man, in exchange for the spark in those piercing eyes, Tony's willing to overlook the fact that Loki is clearly laughing _at_ him.

"I've completely forgotten," Tony admits breezily, flipping up his sunglasses all the better to dazzle the magician with his smile. "Hello again!"

Completely undazzled, Loki jabs a finger at him, stops just short of actually touching him. He doesn't bother to raise his voice over the buzz of the crowd streaming by, but that accent carries, not deep enough to rumble, but strong enough to be heard. "People won't stop telling me you're here, and no amount of telling them that _I know_ will make them hold their tongues."

He doesn't sound all that angry about it, though.

"Well, I am here," Tony points out, reasonably enough. He suppresses the urge to grab that hand and make sure that Loki's actually real, although he's casting a long shadow and his hair's tangled like he's been caught in a slipstream, perhaps from the Manhattan Express roller coaster roaring past at the far end of the bridge.

He thinks he's probably grinning like an idiot. Fair enough. "Goddammit, you meant it! You're really going to give me a second chance? Because my offer's still open."

Loki folds his arms across his chest before Tony can reach out, biting his lip in apparent thought and no little exasperation. "You're going to be pestering me for years, aren't you?" he says resignedly.

"Oh, you betcha. Unless you come work for me like I really, really want you to. Do you have a real name, by the way?"

And that actually looks like confusion. "How do you mean?"

Tony reaches out, snags his fingers in Loki's – rich, deep grey this time – shirt, not without an ironic grin, steering them both towards the railing of the bridge and out of the stream of passersby. "See, here I am, tugging at your sleeves. And I don't even know your last name, much less your real given one."

If he's taken aback by being touched, Loki doesn't show it; he doesn't even seem to notice, and to be fair, Tony hasn't got hold of more than the edge of his shirt. "I am Loki," he says calmly, "and that is the only name I hold claim to at the present."

"Uh huh," Tony says, not letting it go, shirt or topic. If he can get a last name, then even the depths of the Internet won't hide who this man really is. He has to have come from somewhere. "You're you and that's that, huh? Watch out, Madonna."

There's maybe a hairsbreadth of a pause. "I know who that is," Loki says, and man, Tony feels for the irritation not hidden very deep in that sentence. Tony gets bored of people jabbering to him about celebrities too, even if he is one himself. He _worked_ for it, at least.

"No hints, then?"

"I believe you know all you need to."

Oh, but this guy could drive Tony crazy and back, he knows. But he's never been one to quit. "I don't get it. You say you don't want anything to do with me, and then you track me down to tell me in person. Twice. You've got access to holographic technology like nothing I've ever seen, and you're using it to prop up daytime magic shows and resident singers. And that's all you want to do with it? Really?"

Loki turns away from him and puts his hands on the railing of the bridge. "I always think this should be more of a river," he says, apropos of nothing.

"Yeah, the real one's better. The water doesn't move much faster, though." The replica river under the replica bridge is, if possible, even slower than the East River. "You ever been? I've got a couple of labs in upstate New York, a few offices in the city itself. One of them's yours, if you want," he offers.

 _I'll fly you around the world, if you want, if you'll only show me how you got so far ahead of the state of the art on your own,_ he doesn't say – he's not that desperate yet. Tony built computers in his bedroom back when they weighed more than he and Mom did together, he built robots in one of the upstairs lounges and tested them out in the hallways – and, occasionally, on a resigned Mr. Jarvis. So he knows that one person working by themselves can make the rest of the market look like it's stuck in the previous decade.

But he's never seen someone working quite so hard to stay obscure.

Loki doesn't make any sense, and Tony loves having a puzzle to solve.

He's still staring at the bridge over nothing. "It really should be a river," he repeats, mostly to himself. One pale hand dips into a pocket, and pulls out a small disc not much bigger than a drink coaster.

"What's that?" Tony asks, knowing even as he does that he was meant to ask, that there might not be a stage in town that has Loki's name – still probably fake, he thinks spitefully – up in lights, but that _performance_ comes as naturally to this man as electronics do to Tony.

Without answering, Loki tightens his hand around the device, hiding it from view.

A moment later, the water flowing from nowhere to nowhere under the one-fifth-scale Brooklyn Bridge is raging, waves whipping themselves up and racing into currents and spinning each other into eddies like someone has found the plug at the end and pulled it out. White-capped waves race over brand-new rapids, churning and roaring, and for what must be the first time ever, pedestrians leap back from the edges for fear of getting wet, shouting in surprise and alarm as tsunami swells roar down the waterway at top speed.

It lasts for only a few seconds, exactly as long as it takes for Tony to tear his eyes away from the scene and see the grin on Loki's face at the chaos he and his pocket holoprojector – _God_ , Tony wants that thing, and its designer while he's at it – have caused.

Screams draw eyes, eyes draw crowds, and within those seconds there's a stampede of people running to see the show.

Without warning, the waves cut off and the just-for-show water beneath the just-for-show bridge returns to normal. The groans of disappointment from the audience are immediate, and a babble of excited voices start wondering when it's going to happen again.

The volcano a few doors down stopped traffic the first time it went off – Vegas casinos don't _warn_ people when they pull stunts like that.

"That was cool," Tony says for lack of anything better, forcing his voice to stay very calm, because anything else is going to involve _How?_

…and _What the hell?_

…and _Do you just carry that thing with you for moments like this, Fantômas?_

…and _What else have you got in those pockets, gollum, gollum?_

Do people who name themselves after Viking gods play riddle games, and if Tony won, would Loki pay up?

Loki's grin looks like it should have fangs in it. "See you around, Stark," he replies, and vanishes into the crowd before Tony can react.

Damn the man. They _are_ playing a riddle game, and Tony is losing.

* * *

 _five_

Conference rooms everywhere are boring. Conference rooms with all of America's Playground outside are mind-numbing.

Conference rooms with HammerTech lawyers in them all have tiny black holes embedded in the tables, stretching time in the near vicinity out into infinity and impossible to escape from.

This survey of conference rooms has been brought to you courtesy of Tony Stark's Incredible Brain, which is currently being tragically wasted on a meeting he doesn't even need to be at. There's an entire Legal Department, several actually, full of high-powered and high-paid lawyers who are supposed to deal with the ongoing and eternal lawsuit-countersuit-appeal-protest-lawsuit-about-the-protest cycle.

But some complete nitwit thought it would be a good idea for the boss – he is, technically, even though Pepper does most of the work – to be here for this particular round, and now a bald man with a dyspeptic expression and a criminally nice suit is reading a sentence that started with "Whereas" something like ten minutes ago and hasn't hit a period yet.

It is a minor miracle when Tony's cell phone rings.

Various lawyers glare at him.

"Sorry," Tony says insincerely, checking the phone screen. He doesn't recognize the number, but he'd be happy to talk to a recorded telemarketer from Bangladesh if it would get him out of here.

Flipping open the phone – the flatscreen designs the new Phones department is coming up with look very space-age, but the flip-click sound is still cool – he ventures, "Hello?" Anyone who has this number should know who's answering it, he doesn't need to specify.

" _I think one of your factories is probably rather on fire, or something similarly urgent_ ," a familiar and entirely unexpected but completely welcome cool British voice greets him.

Tony bites down on a smile, keeping a straight face with what should be award-winning composure, and resists the urge to say _Hi Merlin_. Loki threatened to lock him in a cash cart the next time Tony called him Gandalf, but there must be hundreds of wizards out there and Tony's going to go through them all. "What?" he says instead, playing along. "Whoa, whoa, slow down, I can't hear you. Say that again?"

He pauses for effect, turning a shoulder away from the table in mock privacy.

" _Lights, shouting, people running everywhere. Screaming cars. What a horrible invention those are."_

"Okay, take a head count and make sure everyone's out safe. Stay on the line, I'll be back with you in a minute." That should do it, Tony thinks, and when he turns back to the lawyers, they are indeed listening like people who know they shouldn't be. Perfect.

"Lady and gentlemen," he says, assuming a worried expression, "sorry to interrupt, but something's come up. Please, go on without me." Hopefully he hasn't put too much of an emphasis on the _please_ … "Liu, make a note, I was here as long as I could be."

He's already up and out of his chair and heading for the door by the time the SI lawyer says "Yes, sir," and if there's anything more after that, he doesn't hear it, because he's safely on the other side of the door and checking to make sure no one sees him tip his head back and sigh in relief.

Freedom!

Setting off down the corridor, shoes silent on the rich and subtly patterned carpet, Tony brings the phone back up to his ear. "You still there?" he asks.

The voice on the other end of the phone doesn't answer. He doesn't have to, not when he's waiting around the first corner Tony takes.

"You looked bored," Loki says.

Logical, reasonable people would ask how Loki knew that, since all the doors had been closed and there weren't any windows and no one had entered or left the conference room in over an hour.

Tony's almost given up on logical, reasonable questions.

" _So_ bored," Tony groans, not at all surprised when Loki falls into step beside him, long strides pulled just slightly to stay at the engineer's pace. Wherever they're going, it has to be better than here.

Even if they're going nowhere, just _away_ , well, the company is maddening but good.

"You," announces Tony, "are my hero." Giving the line the beat it deserves, he adds, "…a weird, frustrating, disappearing hero who doesn't make any sense and who people try to hit with chairs, but my hero nonetheless."

"Heartwarming." Whoever Loki honed that deadpan on, Tony doubts there's anything left of them, and if there is, they must be made of titanium.

"My pleasure." Tony grins across – and yes, up – at his bizarre sort-of friend. Stupid lanky Vegas magician with his slim muscles and razor cheekbones and long hair, how dare he be so tall? The nerve. Which is sort of the problem all by itself, and to distract himself from that, he adds, "Square-jawed noble blonds drive me crazy anyway."

He's not expecting Loki to laugh at that, but he does, and it's a real, honest laugh. Damn, Tony needs to make him do that again. "Oh, you have _no_ idea," Loki says wryly, meeting his eyes.

Tony has plenty of idea; Tony has an entire childhood of Howard disappearing for weeks at a time, usually right around a birthday or awards ceremony or presentation, off on some other fruitless search for crashed planes and lost war heroes. He's got stacks of standards he could never live up to, reminiscent praise never for him, _his_ accomplishments never retold. He's got pits of what he finally realized was jealousy of the _other_ guy Howard had had a hand in creating, step-brother or half-uncle or some left-handed relation by adoption, the details didn't matter.

Some part of Howard's iron heart had always been trapped back then, under water, under ice, under decades of lost time, and there was no way Tony could compete with his father's own lost hero, chiseled and true-hearted and clean-cut and shining – and safely, incorruptibly dead.

Square-jawed noble blonds be damned; Tony will take intelligence and creativity and half-mad mischief any day.

He doesn't remember which one of them stopped, but Tony's distantly aware that neither of them are moving, and that even he – and he's not good at emotional cues – can see his own jealousy and resentment and longing reflected in jade-green eyes.

Which means he's staring at Loki again, which he seems to be doing a lot, but to be fair, the man's easy to stare at, and sometimes Tony doesn't dare look away for fear of missing something.

 _No_ , something in Tony denies, because no, there's no way this man he still barely knows could understand. He doesn't need Loki to understand, because that would make something fun far, far too complicated.

 _Oh, Loki_ understands _me!_ Get real.

And yet there's commiseration in the quirk of Loki's bitter smile, and shared amusement in the way Tony can't tear his eyes away, and threads of empathy crackling between them, in that moment.

He wonders, despite himself, who Loki's square-jawed noble blond might be, to evoke that kind of bitterness that Tony recognizes perfectly well.

"It was only _one_ chair," Loki complains, turning away and starting towards the stairs with a jolt. Among the many, many things that don't add up about this man and that Tony is taking careful note of, trying to connect the scattered dots to make some sort of coherent picture, is that he doesn't like elevators much. Why that might be, Tony has no idea. He should wonder about that instead.

"And he missed," echoes back up the stairwell, and Tony follows.

"Hey Merlin," he calls down, trying to check his phone and hurry down stairs at the same time, a realization catching up with him. "Do I now have your phone number?"

"For now."

Tony maybe punches the air. Progress! On visit after visit, Loki's always the one to track him down, and Tony still doesn't know how he does it. Spies, he'd suspect, except…

"How come you never answer it?"

Loki's waiting for him at the bottom of the stairs, which in itself is a big deal, because Tony has – he swears – _blinked_ and the man's disappeared.

"I don't like to be summoned."

"I think you just like driving people crazy," Tony states confidently. They've made it to the casino floor, and all around them tourists and gamblers are glued to their slot machine screens in tireless pursuit of aligning wheels and cascading coins. Living arms raise and lower metal ones under spinning multicolored lights, like a very confused cyborg collective that's tried to digest a threshing mill and a disco party at the same time.

"I never said that," Loki protests, but there's no real bite to it. They both know it's true. "You are putting words in my mouth."

A deafening range of bells go off right next to Tony's ear as he passes, which is surely why he says – aloud, at that – "I can think of some other things I'd like to put there."

Also, he's the most idiotic genius out there.

So he flirts with everything moving that won't punch him and/or report him to tabloids. It's a reflex. And the only pushback he's gotten from Loki is the return of the skeptical Spock eyebrow, only terribly, _terribly_ amused.

There's a very real possibility, Tony suspects, that – one way or another – this strikingly pretty and shockingly predatory and all-around bafflingman is going to eat him alive.

He tries to bite his tongue and smile at the same time.

"Uh," he backpedals cheerfully. "Drinks? Of course I meant drinks."

They end up hiding from any wandering lawyers who might suspect that Tony's playing hooky, talking about nothing in particular in the back corner of some bar so much part of the fabric of the casino that it doesn't even have a name. Tony complains about the lawyers a lot and draws angry cartoon caricatures of Justin Hammer and his Hammerminions on bar napkins. Loki steals the pen off him and adds spiders, making Tony laugh.

They end up waging a stick figure apocalypse over most of the table, inventing increasingly dire and inky fates.

"So where are you from, anyway?" Tony asks as he nabs the pen back and contributes extra spikes to the Conference Room of Doom, where Hammer and the Hammerminions are spending napkin eternity as a terrible garage band.

Loki doesn't miss a beat. "Space," he says.

Tony chuckles and draws him a cartoon rocket ship. They'll probably put some sacrificial stick figures in the flaming exhaust in a minute. "Yeah, I'd almost believe it," he admits, leveling the pen at his strange almost-friend. "But seriously, where? You sound English. Precise, cool, Shakespearian, sexy, smart. So you're still Merlin until further notice."

And if Loki has a problem with that, he's going to be Harry Potter next. Oh, there's a list.

"Never mind, Stark."

"If I guess, will you tell me?" he persists.

"I did tell you."

Right. Because Loki doesn't _do_ straight answers, still won't tell Tony anything. They hang out and Tony offers him the world in exchange for his near-miraculous technology and Loki disappears whenever he feels like it. And rescues him from conference rooms. And makes him laugh. And puts up with his scattershot flirting.

And keeps coming back.

And makes no sense at all.

"Space. Right. Uh huh. Welcome to Earth, then. How was space?" he asks flippantly.

Loki rests his chin on one hand. It's almost a wistful look, but his tone is just as teasing. "Space was nice."

"Space would be amazing, actually," Tony says, and he's off on a much more interesting tangent than tormenting stick figure lawyers. "I'm trying to get NASA to talk to me, but they've got this persistent bias against private companies. Fair enough, usually on the second or third page of any private enterprise space exploration proposal you start seeing the word 'branding', and NASA's dead set against advertising or anything that would take away from pure science. But I want in! Or out, I suppose. Out there, building spaceships and looking for alien life."

He misses the tiny, tiny quirk of a sarcastic smile.

Because _space_.

"Like every good little kid who went and saw _Star Wars_ seventeen times, I suppose. Not that I did that. But hey, I did build my own droids, sort of. You should come meet them sometime, Merlin."

"Perhaps," says Loki.

"Invitation's open," Tony says.

* * *

Pepper likes to tie together long chains of incriminating evidence before she confronts her boss the man-child with anything, because otherwise he will find a way to weasel away every single time.

He's lucky she secretly likes him and that _she,_ at least, has some vestiges of dignity, because otherwise she would have upended a trashcan over his swollen head and slammed the door behind her years ago.

It's not her job to run his life for him, except that _oh wait_ , it is. Some days she negotiates swaps with arts dealers in total confidence that by the time Tony notices the changes in the décor, he'll be so used to the new ones he'll have to check with her that there was something else there four months ago. Other days she interviews archivists to find someone willing and qualified to get lost in the classified minefield that is the Stark family's papers, some of which still haven't been digitized. She plays telephone tag with branches of the government with keyboard-smash names to make sure that the archivists' background checks are going to be processed some time before the heat death of the universe, a subject Tony decided that she needed a lecture on last weekend for some reason.

It's down to her to make sure requisitions from the various labs nationwide get signed, and that transfer orders to the international outposts get approved. She's particularly pleased with the partnership with that radio observatory, and that the whole expedition got in and out of Antarctica without anyone – or any expensive equipment – falling down a crevasse, which at one point had involved her personally bullying snowmobile mechanics into putting parts on planes to be shipped south _now_.

She thinks she has at least one contact number or email for every newspaper, scientific journal, and trash magazine in the United States on her personal laptop, not to mention the over two thousand charities who reach out to Stark Industries – which is to say, her – every month.

Tony's name goes on buildings, but the people in those buildings know who gets things done.

Some days the minutia is maddening. Some days the scale of it all delights her, and she _loves_ that she can make three phone calls and a global company will pivot to obey.

There are more styles of genius than Tony's machines and electronics; Pepper Potts walks with her head high and tolerates her boss's whims with amusement, secure in the knowledge that the world needs organizers as much as it needs engineers.

And she'd be so bored anywhere else.

There's relative peace on the plane for now, since her boss is absorbed in alternately scribbling in the margins of the issue of _Scientific American_ that she offered him up as guest-editor for, and tapping out text messages on his phone, pulling faces at the screen.

So Pepper is seizing the opportunity to get some work done, even if she's the one wearing the noise-cancelling headphones to block out Tony's music. He insists that it's his plane and he'll play his music however loud he likes, and Pepper has long since written that off as a battle she's not going to win.

Instead she's going over reports from the past year. She was looking for what she suspects is fuel funds embezzlement among Stark Industries' fleet of business cars, but she's spotted something else, a lot more obvious and a lot closer to home.

"Tony?" she asks, slipping off one headphone and seizing on a break in the pounding bass to stretch over and hit _Pause_. Before he can object, she cuts him off with, "What's going on in Las Vegas?"

He's usually quick off the mark with a comeback to anything, so when his first response is to glance at his phone, Pepper draws her own conclusions.

"Do you have a girlfriend or something? And do I need to run damage control in any way?" There are _so many things_ the phrase "damage control" encompasses when it comes to Tony Stark; she wouldn't even know where to begin if it wasn't a well-worn track already. "Financial? Public relations? Legal?"

Tony tries to wave a dismissive hand, finds the pencil still in it, sticks it behind one ear where it wavers lopsidedly. If the plane hits the slightest bit of turbulence, that thing will be in the back of the cabin before she can blink. "No, no, no, no, no," he denies effusively. "Nothing like that. Actually –" he rescues the pencil, points it at her. "I met a guy."

Pepper doesn't manage to keep a lock on her expression as she says, very calmly, "Mr. Stark, might I remind you how long it took for the last set of rumors to go away, and how many tabloid photographers I had to threaten –"

They weren't even embarrassing photographs, especially given how many _really_ embarrassing photographs there are out there of Tony Stark in a variety of compromising situations with universally beautiful, shallow, temporary women, and to this day she's still not sure why the tabloids decided to blow them up into some great and nonexistent – to her knowledge, and she usually knows – scandal.

Tony grins the kind of grin that means he's trying to get away with something. "Shields down, Ms. Potts. Not like that. …I don't think so, anyway. I'm still trying to figure him out, but I know I've found a major talent no one else has got their hands on, and I want him. _We_ want him."

"Oh?" That's more to Pepper's taste, and she folds her hands across her laptop, offering her boss the benefit of the doubt. She doesn't trust him an inch with beautiful people, but when it comes to technology, she trusts Tony's judgment unconditionally. He really is the best, not that she's ever going to tell him that. If he thinks she's impressed, he'll stop trying to impress her.

"His name's Loki – that's the only name I've got so far. He's playing hard to get with me, but he plays fun." To her surprise, Tony's face has lit up in a genuine smile. Pepper knows how to read him; it's a vital job skill, and she knows at once that he likes this person. "Damn, Pep, you've got to see what he can do – he does things with holograms, I don't even know where they're coming from. If I can just get him on board, we can corner the market on virtual reality a decade before anyone else comes close."

"What's holding him back?" Usually Pepper can't move for people wanting in on the Stark Industries money bin, usually with shovels poorly hidden behind their backs and half-baked ideas proffered in their other hand. An independent who's reluctant to sign on is practically unheard of, in her experience.

Tony flicks the pencil at the ceiling, where it totally fails to stick, because the plane isn't made out of asbestos-laden fiber. "Beats me. I don't know what he wants, and I've been offering. I was not kidding about the playing hard to get. But I'm keeping after him, trying to figure that out before someone else spots him – now there's a hobby I could sign up for – and seduces him away. Maddeningly stubborn man. But we have fun."

He stops, lips parted around whatever word has died in his throat, eyes glazing over and fixing on some middle distance, some place she can't see.

"Yeah," Tony says instead. He sounds surprised. "Actually, we do. …I think I've made a friend, Pep."

The people who only know the freewheeling CEO and the inveterate party boy might not think anything of that sentence. Pepper knows him better. Pepper knows that Tony can count his real friends, the people _he_ would count as friends, on one hand.

Pepper needs to find out more about this man, immediately, just in case. Looking after Tony is, after all, her job.

Still, she has to ask.

"Is he cute?" she asks, resignedly.

Tony laughs. "Cute is for puppies and cheerleaders," he contradicts. "Loki's something else. Just as an all-purpose statement, I expect."

"Mr. Stark…"

"Let's go with eye-catching, and you didn't hear that from me. I've been editing this article this whole time."

And he turns the music back on, which would have more or less ended the conversation if he'd still had the pencil.

Pepper gives him almost thirty seconds of looking for it before using it to hit _Pause_ one more time.

To his credit, he doesn't try to pretend like he doesn't know what she wants. "Okay, okay, and I'll introduce you to him sometime. If I can manage to keep him around long enough to get hold of you."

"Thank you," Pepper approves, and hands him the pencil.

* * *

 _seven_

The tiger surveys the meadow like a king, eyes half-closed, body relaxed, speed and power and death in a white fur coat that would have made Cruella de Vil go green with envy even faster. Basking in the humid, sultry heat and the shade of the palms, it somehow manages to be at once a languid puddle of inertia and carelessness, and as regal as an emperor with the power of life and death in each hand.

Or heavy, sharp-clawed paw.

If the presence of the humans drifting past or glued to the wire-mesh fence disturbs it, not even a flicker of a tail-tip shows any unease. What does the tiger care? It's beautiful, and it's safe. It probably doesn't remember any other life, when food didn't appear on a schedule and chattering bipeds didn't trim its claws and comb fleas from its fur. In the tiger's world, pleasantly chilly waterfalls pour ceaselessly into clean and filtered pools for its friend to nap in, half in and half out of the water, and every one of its cubs is guaranteed to grow up, bottle-fed and vaccinated and cared for.

No one's pointing a spotlight at it anymore, or commanding it to rear and jump and pose for the entertainment of audiences. The tiger's only job is to be a tiger, and to be adored.

The Secret Garden is a different kind of heat from the late summer outside, wet and heavy, and the salty tang of the dolphin habitat just steps away twines together with the scents of the tropical flowers and thick ferns and the musk of big cats. It seems a world away from the desert, perhaps even more so than the island universes contained within the indoor theme parks of the Las Vegas Strip.

Forty-five minutes ago Tony had gotten a text from a number he didn't recognize that said merely, _tigers_.

A single question to the nearest bellhop had sent him down the street to the Mirage, past the volcano and the fish tank the Olympic swim team could hold trials in, and into the tropical jungle like a fantasy Paradise, where he's been wandering and waiting and casting about knowing that he's not going to spot his friend until Loki is damn well ready to be spotted.

He's begun entertaining the suspicion that Loki might actually be _in_ the tiger enclosure. The fact that no one but the tigers' handlers are allowed in there – not like the dolphin habitat, where tourists can not only swim with the dolphins but _paint_ with them, because apparently dolphins can paint – is completely irrelevant.

Or he's been sent running just as an experiment, to determine how fast he'll hop, and Loki is god knows elsewhere, laughing at him.

In which case Tony needs to reevaluate his life.

At some point, anyway.

"I've found," Loki's cool voice says from just beside him, and something delighted sighs beneath Tony's breastbone, "that I like tigers."

Tony looks around to find him with a hand reached out towards the snow-white predator in the gorgeous cage, long fingers tangled in the wire mesh. Damn, but someone two meters tall even without the combat boots should not be that quiet, but the magician seems to move on cat feet as much as the tigers do.

"I was half-expecting you to be in there with them," Tony offers, and is rewarded with a smile, approving and mischievous and thoughtful in a way that would probably make him very nervous if he thought about it too much.

"That would be a remarkable hiding place."

That would not have been Tony's first reason – his would have been more "do you dare me to, and what do I win if I do?" Why the hell is that where Loki's imagination went?

He knows better than to ask. He won't get an answer. In fact, a year after he first heard Loki's name, he still knows little more than he did to begin with.

 _Who are you?_ he still wants to demand. _Where did you come from? What do you want? How the hell can you create images indistinguishable from reality with a couple of boxes no one dares open when I, the five teams I have working on it, and the rest of the tech world can't get close?_

Not to mention _would you really climb in there with the tigers?_

He can rattle off the answers by heart by now, and still believes none of them: _I'm Loki; space;_ …still drawing a blank on that one, but _driving you crazy_ seems to be part of it… and _magic._

Also, probably, _yes_ , possibly followed by _watch me._

That last one he believes.

God, other people seem so boring by comparison.

Instead, he asks, "Not thinking of hiding from me, are you, Merlin?"

A sideways green glance, more of the smile. "Since I'm standing here, no. Unless you keep calling me that."

"Good." And it is good.

"Do you like them?" Loki asks, sounding genuinely interested, as a third, smaller, just as white tiger pads along the edge of the almost too blue pool in the adjacent enclosure, brushing up against the twinned elephant statues like any housecat. The now-dozing first tiger doesn't even raise its head, but its eyes track the movement with magnificent unconcern.

"Yeah. I mean, look at that kitty move. Gorgeous. There's a reason they called the Jag after a wildcat." That doesn't feel like enough, so Tony keeps talking. "I'm not much for animals – machines are more my thing – but that's millions of years of evolution making engineering look like Tinker Toys. And I saw their show once, years ago, before one of them decided it was done with that game."

Incredibly beautiful, tigers. Never not dangerous.

"You know, I had a great-aunt somewhere who tamed tigers, for the circus, back in the twenties."

"Somehow," Loki murmurs, "I believe you."

Tony grins back at him. "Yeah, I never met her. Died before I was born. Not that my dad ever bothered to mention something that messy – Pepper went on a genealogy kick a few years back, when that was a thing. I'm told she used to walk around in the streets with one on a leash."

That actually wins him a chuckle. "I hope you don't have ambitions in the same direction. I'd hate to have to hurt one of them over you."

"Gee, thanks. Your priorities are weirder than you. Nice." Loki doesn't seem to take it as an insult, which is good, because Tony hadn't meant it as one. "But no way," he adds, waving a hand before Loki can let one of them out just to see if Tony really has tiger-taming powers, which he does _not_ , thank you very much. "I'm happy with these fellows where they are. They're more real in here than on a stage, or on a leash, I think. They're still amazing and cared for and admired."

"But they're trapped." It's so soft Tony almost misses it.

He can't really argue conservation biology and the ethics of zoos – and this is a zoo – given human population pressures. What does Loki expect, that the tigers should be free to wander the streets? There's no way that would end well for anyone, and further out there's a desert as different from this tropical sauna as Siberia. He changes the subject slightly.

"I wonder if they miss it."

"I don't follow."

"The spotlight. The audience. The performance."

"Ah." Loki closes his eyes and smiles – almost. There's a muscle pulled tight in his already-too-sharp jaw that gives the lie to it, one of his few tells that Tony's learned to look for. "Perhaps."

Ouch. There's a minefield under this conversation, and Tony's blindfolded and in the dark. There are clues to be had, hints he's being given, but nothing looks like an edge piece and someone has hidden the picture on the box. "What do you like about them?" he asks hurriedly.

"They're dangerous. And they don't care what humans think of them."

That line of conversation dies a quick death under tiger claws, but Loki seems perfectly content to stand and watch the tigers do nothing, hands locked behind his back, indifferent to anyone else.

And after a minute or two, Tony finds himself able to stay quiet and wait with him, as if he's been enclosed in the bubble of personal space Loki seems to wrap around himself, somehow keeping the crowds of strangers milling around absolutely everywhere at bay.

It's not an awkward silence. More of a tiger silence.

To _hell_ with the silence of the lambs.

It's not until one of the tiger keepers escorts a tumbling litter of cubs out into the viewing area that the press of cooing tiger fans grows overwhelming, and in a moment Loki's turned away and there's a hand on Tony's shoulder, pulling him along with no more than a touch.

He follows without hesitation.

Hop, bunny.

"If I gave you a phone," he suggests as they emerge back into the Mirage's lobby, fish tank flashing a thousand spectra across the wide-open room, "would you answer it? If I was the only one calling on it, and I promised not to bug you too outrageously?"

Loki thinks about it. "No," he says finally.

The hand on Tony's shoulder has, at some point, centered itself along his spine. Magician's fingers tighten to silence his half-formed objection and Tony's feet stop along with his voice.

" _But_ ," he specifies, "I might not throw it away."

Tony's probably smiling too much, and he doesn't care. "Is that what happened to the previous one?"

But Loki's literally biting back a smile of his own, so it's fine. "Possibly. Or it may have exploded."

"How the – Merlin, I don't even want to know."

(He really wants to know.)

The magician puts a single finger on Tony's chest to hold him still, and Tony very nearly stops breathing. "I will keep the phone," Loki offers, and hell, maybe it's the accent, but Tony's been in strip clubs that sounded less like a proposition, "if you will stop calling me that."

Breathing, breathing, nitrogen-oxygen-argon-carbon-dioxide-water-vapor-assorted-trace-elements-and-compounds, in and out, right. "You know I've got a list to get through?"

Green eyes glare at him. "My name," Loki insists. " _Mine_. And no other."

Well, _damn_ , when he puts it like that…

"Loki," Tony says.

It's a deal.

* * *

 _eight_

The Oblivion team, designing a new class of long-range high-altitude bombers, had gotten stuck in a corner with the targeting scopes, and their tests kept destroying the wrong chunks of inoffensive missile range. Tony had threatened to banish them all to New Mexico Tech to be tour guides.

Dallaire had said, "Super. It's Homecoming Week next month," and tipped her chair backwards to work out the carpooling arrangements with the others.

"Fine, fine, fine," Tony had cut her off, blinking a green laser pointer at her. Everyone keeps laser pointers in their pockets, right? "What'll it take to get Oblivion fixed by…" He'd scowled at their blueprints, wondering if there was actually a table somewhere under there. He could have sworn he'd seen one earlier. "Let's say October."

Sixteen people tried to talk at once, voices piling on top of each other, protesting that it couldn't be done.

"Let's try that again," Tony offered when even Cartmel had talked himself out and subsided into a heap by the pencil sharpener someone had glued upside-down to the wall years ago. "I didn't ask if it could be done, I asked what reward you wanted for doing it. I can multiply by four too, Scotties."

They'd thought it over and decided they wanted a Vegas vacation, because they're sick of Connecticut, and Tony had agreed to foot the bill for _one_ night on the town provided they got the Oblivion design not only done but approved by the Air Force review panel.

Which is why, in early November, there's a mob of Stark Industries engineers thronged around an unfortunate craps table, yelling and pushing and arguing over counters and, in Letts' case, jumping up and down. Someone needs to calm that kid down before the stickman puts that stick to a better use. Tony's never seen it happen, but he's keeping an eye out.

They're even wearing matching shirts, hot off the presses, thanks to Cole, who has a tendency to doodle vintage planes in the margins of schematics and took a semester of graphic design once upon a time, and Peel, who found an overnight screenprinter and, by all accounts, stood on their doorstep and harangued them into staying open late.

Tony had refused to either pay for or wear any of the shirts, but they pressed one on him anyway. It's in the Jaguar's afterthought of a trunk, where it'll no doubt take up residence and make friends with the pliers and the jumper cables – when does he not need jumper cables? – for the next few months.

The best thing about the shirts, apart from Cole's dive-bombing screaming Hellcat artwork, is that none of them are in weapons-grade Hawaiian print, so the team is at no risk of being confused with the pack of tipsy ex-poker players who have managed to infiltrate the table.

Confused _by_ , on the other hand…

The dice ricochet off the back wall, and Dallaire screams, "Nine! Nine!" at them as they bounce past McIntee and Rayner's pucks. Cole, who's playing the Don't Pass bet, jeers at her while Messingham frantically mutters percentages under his breath to Stone, who waves him away.

The dice come up a four, and on the wrong section of felt for anyone to win anything, and the stickman scoops them off the table to free things up for everything to shuffle and reset. One of the poker players has sobered up enough to take his Pass Line chip and get out while he still can, but the design team is too much of a show for anyone to actually leave.

It's fast and wild and ridiculous, loud and happy and exciting, and pure fun; Tony's put them on a generous gambling budget but it's not like they could make a dent in even his daily earnings, and anyway, the company will get all of it back from the military commissions. The review panel had eaten Oblivion up and asked how fast they could roll off the line and get to work over in what people are referring to as "the shit".

In the background the slot machines chatter and chime temptation, electronic burbles singing to themselves in a constant siren-song refrain. A roulette wheel rattles like a pinball machine, and a roar from the nearby sports bar dissolves into the sounds of people banging on tables and alternately cursing and whooping as the announcer calls the winner of what might be a horse race, judging from the glimpses Tony can see of the television as his engineers jockey – hah – for position around the craps table, carefully avoiding jostling the stickman as she stands patiently watching each throw.

Everything's a little too bright and a little too loud, the volume on the world turned up to eleven, washed in sultry red-gold and lit up by dancing lights on the slots like jangling supernovas. The heady atmosphere of the casino works its way into Tony's blood and pulses through his skull; he can taste it on the air as he joins in the cheers for Dallaire as she rattles the dice in one hand, waving it over her head, and rolls the bones, successfully landing a seven on Pass and claiming the round.

"Drinks, ladies and gentlemen?" the stickman suggests politely as she retrieves the dice. Her eyes flicker around the table, fix on a point over Tony's shoulder, return to the table. "On the house, of course. A moment, perhaps?"

She waves over one of the passing servers and gets two, dispatching them on an errand to the nearest bar, and for a minute they're not a team and the boss, they're all gamblers set loose in Las Vegas and told to have fun, ragging on each other and reenacting the last few rounds and, in the guys' and Rayner's cases, flirting with the returning waitresses.

"Who's up?" Dallaire whoops. "Who else wants to show Cole who's boss?"

Tony beckons to the redhead with the dice. "Well, _I'm_ the boss, so that sounds like my go," he declares, and the table starts placing their bets.

But she won't offer him the dice, and Tony knows craps well enough to know it would be very bad behavior to take them. "Just a moment, please," she says, edging around the table to hiss in the ear of the boxman. After that moment, they're joined by one of the dealers.

Things stay on hold long enough that Tony suspects that they're stalling, and starts wondering if his people are all about to be kicked out by casino security for cheating or shouting too loud – but there's no such thing – or having the audacity to wear matching shirts. They're trying to hide it, but the second dealer has also looked around and joined the huddle, and that's not normal. Their job is to keep things moving, not slow them down.

Weird. Whatever. The team can go somewhere else.

He looks around for the best prospect, scans past _another_ bar, and does a classic double-take.

 _Hey you_ , Tony mouths.

Loki lifts one hand in a tiny, tiny wave from where he's watching them, shoulder propped against one of the columns, flashes from the slots striking sparks off the gold ribbons twining along the edges of his long jacket and that tiny grace note of an earring, still somehow blazing green despite the redshifted lighting. The crazily whirling lights make him look like a demon taking a busman's holiday, trawling idly through Sin City, window-shopping with an immortal's patience, but he doesn't seem aware of the racket, nor of the heads he's literally turning.

Tony can count at least fourteen faces pointed in that direction, rapt, which pisses him off just a tiny bit. It's a bright little coal inflating champagne bubbles popping up and down his spine and simmering from every centimeter of skin.

Oh yeah, and there are engineers in Hellcat-themed Stark Industries shirts talking at him.

"I'm out," Tony says, clapping Messingham on the back. "Gotta go see a man about a tiger before he disappears again. Don't do anything I would."

If they're confused, let them be. They've got all of the magic and madness in Las Vegas to entertain themselves with; Tony's just got dibs on this particular bit of all that.

"There you are!" he exclaims, barely remembering to stop before he actually collides with the magician. His feet want to keep going. "I didn't even bring you that phone yet – I haven't forgotten – how do you always know? That I'm here? Where I am?"

If he's too close, and he thinks he might be, Loki hasn't backed away. Of course, there's a stone pillar behind him, so maybe Tony shouldn't read too much into that. He's reading plenty out of the sarcastic expression as it is.

"Magic," Loki deadpans.

Tony mouths it along with him. "Ri-ight," he drawls sarcastically. "I forgot. C'mon, let's get out of here before the kids catch up and start asking, you know, all those questions you don't answer."

"Nice shirts."

"Yeah, the new plane's prettier but the Air Force stuck a classified sticker on it. They're like a new hire with a label maker about those stickers." They're out of sight of the Oblivion team, and Tony doesn't quite breathe a sigh of relief, because they're smart and observant people, but he doesn't like them so much that he wants their sticky eyes and gawking whispers all over…whatever this is.

Loki's not _his_ ; as far as Tony can tell, Loki's not _anyone's_. No friends, that woman had said last year; no real name; no apparent home; no connections he can't toss out a window and walk away from on a whim. He's an anomaly, a ghost in a town obsessed with flesh.

 _No one_ is this comprehensively anonymous. Everyone leaves tracks on the world. Except Loki, lurking in the shadows and cracks of Sin City and hoarding technology indistinguishable from magic, and even to Tony, that sounds like a lonely way to exist. Which puts Tony in an exclusive sort of position, as far as he can figure out, because this man without apparent past or future keeps including Tony in his present, and that's something he wants to savor and hoard all to himself.

Tony's still got nothing, but he's an acquisitive bastard, and he's incapable of leaving puzzles unsolved.

Loki's not his, but Tony's working on it.

Fortunately, he can walk and talk and think _and_ stare at the same time – he could chew gum, too, if he had any gum, because Incredible Brain. "So what have you been up to? Oh, and hey, did you ever want a jet pack when you were a kid? Assuming you were ever a kid…"

"Long ago."

Tony waves this off as the hyperbole it must be. "Psssh," he actually says, "You're younger than me. And if you're not, wow." He makes a grand pretense of ogling his companion, with many flourishes that hopefully hide the fact that he _is_ looking, because dammit all, Loki's easy to look at, easy and elegant in motion, both untouchable and tempting, and if everyone else in this casino can look, which they do seem to be doing, Tony can certainly get away with it too.

He gives himself a second for the joke, and goes on. "Anyway, the thing about jet packs is, big design flaw, they set people's asses on fire. Do not ask me how I know this, because I can see you thinking about it."

Loki grins that predator grin, and doesn't deny it.

"So that's obviously not a selling point. But I'm working on these things that should have all the push but none of the fire…"

Winding staircases climb the walls in the casino maze, leading to viewing balconies like magic treehouses looking out over the atrium from the second floor. The two of them are settled in one and drinks have appeared from somewhere by the time Tony's talked out the repulsors, not bothering about the fact that they're still in development and not patented yet, because even if Loki does understand the engineering well enough to duplicate it, Tony doesn't really believe that his friend is suddenly going to turn spy for some other company.

He's _some_ kind of risk, that much Tony's absolutely sure of, but probably not the industrial espionage type.

Tony was talking about thrust-to-weight ratios when drinks happened, but the glass by Tony's hand is the mellowed-out scotch he's partial to and Loki's nursing a glass of wine so red it might actually be black, which seems about right. One day he's going to set the magician up with something stronger, see if he can actually get the man drunk, which sounds _lovely_.

"So what was that all about?" he asks, tipping the scotch at his friend. "At the craps table. That was you she was looking at, wasn't it? Sixteen hyperactive engineers and me mouthing off didn't so much as ruffle her, but I bet there's a direct correlation between you showing up and our game freezing."

Loki shrugs with his hands rather than his shoulders, a European sort of gesture – it's on the Clues list – one hand upturned as if relinquishing control of the matter. "I cannot answer for such behavior, Stark."

"I'd almost say she was spooked. Loki, c'mon, why?"

"Some people believe I really do have magic."

Tony resists the urge to slap a hand over his face, since there's a drink in it. He settles for drinking more scotch. "No kidding? Seriously, people will believe anything. I mean, I can't explain your work, but then I can't explain literary criticism, either. Doesn't mean it's inexplicable, just means I haven't been taught how to do it yet."

"And what of things that no one can teach?"

"Oh, hell." He feels like he should have his feet up on something, but there's nothing convenient; the nearest chair is definitely occupied and he's going to need a lot more scotch and a lot more privacy before he puts his feet on Loki's lap. "Look, of course there are things we don't understand yet. Quantum mechanics. Dark matter. The Higgs Boson. Consciousness. Climate. Why women always open their mouths when they put on mascara. But those things can _be_ understood, we just don't have enough information yet. Magic… Sorry, talking to a magician here, I know, but still, you know what you do from the inside out. You understand it. To me, _magic_ just means someone stopped asking questions."

"You do ask many questions," Loki observes dryly, but there's no real malice in his gaze. He's rested his chin on his free hand, relaxed and listening; the other toys with the wineglass, spinning it slightly. For a moment Tony could have sworn an impossibly deep eddy had opened up in the blood-red liquid, but he blinks again and the laws of fluid dynamics are back in operation.

"You keep not answering them."

"Well, you _are_ , as you have observed,talking to a magician."

"Hah."

Draining the glass, Loki abandons it and moves to the balcony, reaching a hand back to Tony, who takes it on reflex. For an instant he's boiling over with the shock of skin on skin, but it's gone almost at once and they're merely standing side by side looking out over the casino floor.

"Look," the magician invites him, stepping back. Cool hands rest on his shoulders, holding him in place, and Tony freezes; he doesn't much like people standing _that_ close behind him, and nerves light up his spine with mixed signals.

"The wheel. There. Watch."

The roulette wheel Loki's pointing him at, almost immediately below their balcony, has just been launched into its spin by the attendant, a stocky, dark man with close-cropped hair in a pristine red vest. The ball rattles and clicks and rebounds off the randomizing elements, pins and blocks and gears – it's pinball for adults, is roulette.

"Fifteen."

Two seconds later – Tony counts by his racing heart – the wheel stops and the ball lands on 15.

He has to clear his throat twice and lick his very dry lips before he can croak out, "Lucky guess."

"Do you believe so?" _God_ , Tony doesn't even have to see the smile. "Keep watching."

The quarter's a casino chip, and there's no way to get a tilt, but – pinball.

"Twenty-four."

 _24._

Again.

"Eighteen."

 _18._

Again.

"The zeros."

 _00._

"Twenty-five."

 _25._

"Ten."

 _10._

Between the man just a hairsbreadth away and the mugging that probability is taking, there's not enough oxygen left in Tony for more than a whisper. "That's totally impossible," he manages.

"Sixteen."

 _16._

"Thirty-six."

 _36._

At last he tears himself away, stepping sideways, shrugging off the hands that now feel like they're burning straight through to his skin, and _god_ , but that fire spreads so easily. He doesn't remember picking up the rest of his scotch, or drinking it, but there's an empty glass in his hand and at least now it's just his throat that's burning, so inferences can be drawn.

On his second try, Tony manages to say, "That – that's quite a trick."

Still at the railing, hands behind his back now, Loki looks…amused, more than anything. "May I?" he asks, gesturing at the table.

"What…? Dammit, Loki, of course, I'm not – I'm just – wow. Don't be stupid, man, sit. I'm – I'm amazed, I'm impressed as _hell_ , but I'm not _scared_ of you." Because that's what he's doing, Tony realizes even as he says it; he's hanging back as if Tony might jump and run if he comes too close.

Tony really wishes he had more scotch. He settles for a deep breath. "That," he says finally, "is incredible. You must scare the pants off the casinos." He can still feel hands on his shoulders, and manages to avoid saying _you can scare my pants off me any day._ Instead, he asks the obvious question. "How did you do that?

The shrug is both hands this time, long fingers outspread, disingenuous. "Well, either it's a predicable system, if I'm observant enough, or…"

If his life depended on it, if taking his next breath was contingent on not asking, Tony would still not be able to avoid taking what he knows is bait. "Or?"

"Or I really do have magic."

Tony's going to go with _you could send the card counters home crying,_ but he's saved from the need to put that sentence together by the arrival of a woman with a tray of drinks that look suspiciously like a much-needed second round.

He's just breathing out off the shot of scotch when the woman bangs her empty tray on the table, somehow missing Loki's outstretched hands.

"Excuse me," she says politely to Tony, and turns back to the magician.

"Edison says stop bloody messing with his table!" she hisses.

Loki's eyes are _glittering_ ; bright and delighted and shameless. "Me?" he says anyway.

" _You._ He knows someone's meddling with it, and it's _got_ to be you!"

He chuckles and presses one finger to his lips, not so much _silence_ as _thinking_. "Only playing," Loki purrs, looking up through his eyelashes at her coyly, the very picture of guilt – no _wonder_ they believe, Tony can't help but think, when he plays the role so delightedly!

Her hands clench on the edge of the tray like she's considering a transfer into discus-throwing, but she smiles very, very sweetly.

"Scram."

Completely unbothered, Loki looks past her as if she's ceased to exist, and for the second time tonight rises to his feet and holds out a hand. "Shall we?" he invites.

Tony doesn't believe in any sort of god, and so none of them are available to help him. He takes it.

* * *

"You're not the strangest person I've ever met," he says as they head out into the neon night together. The Oblivion team can keep themselves entertained. "But you're on the list."

For that, Tony gets what he's starting to think of as Loki's Real Smile, which shows his teeth and looks like danger and madness and exhilaration.

He really, really likes it.

* * *

 _To be continued._

 **Author's Note:** Mabel Stark was a real and utterly badass tiny blonde lady who did indeed tame and perform with tigers for the circus in the 1920s and 1930s. She was pretty awesome. You should look her up.


	4. Fear and Loki in Las Vegas

ON WITH THE SHOW!

 _it is distantly possible that I actually wrote this whole story just to use this title_

 **Chapter Four: Fear and Loki in Las Vegas**

 _ten_

"Tony! Tony, wake up!"

He flails his way back to consciousness out of a fast-fading dream, something about deep water and darkness and a laughing voice in his ear…no, wait, that's reality, and his eyes struggle to focus. It's almost pitch dark in the hotel room, blackout curtains drawn, and he might as well be lost out among the stars – there was a _ship_ in his dream, a sailing ship like the one down the street, only flying through space, except there were waves pitching it like a corkscrewing missile, and he couldn't find the right spanner –

"What?" he manages, slurring the last letter. "What the – 's dark –"

"Oh, you're _useless_ –" a familiar voice complains. Loki sounds close enough to touch, and Tony reaches out reflexively, groping for him just to figure out where he is because then maybe he can figure out where he is himself. He needs _something_ to orient himself on, because he's not even sure he's really awake. This could just be another dream. Loki turns up in his dreams every so often.

A light snaps on, bright and blue-white and burning, and green afterimages dance across Tony's retinas. He pulls his hand back to block it out. Squinting and blinking as his eyes adjust, he's somehow not at all surprised to see Loki sitting on the foot of the bed like he belongs there, fidgeting and twitching and humming with energy barely held at bay. He holds _something_ bright cupped in one hand like a kid with a flashlight playing scary-face, turning his face into a geometer's wonderland of planes and angles.

"Come _on_!" Loki all but whines, making as if to grab Tony's nearest foot through the enveloping sheets before changing whatever it is serves him for a mind and not doing that.

"Loki, it's the middle of the night, what the hell…"

"I _know_ that, I know it is, it has to be, now come on!" He – no, Tony can't quite justify the use of the word 'bounces', but there's a definite spring in his movements as he disappears into the suite beyond.

Tony mumbles, "I jus' don't even know anymore," into a sympathetic pillow, which invites him to stay where it's warm, go back to sleep, ignore the housebreaking hyperactive madman in the other room…

" _Tony!"_

He gets up, patting around for the light – Loki has inconveniently taken his with him, Tony can see it flickering around, tracking the movements of its owner like a comet's tail – and only managing to knock his phone off the bedside table to bounce away into a corner and vanish.

When he shambles out into the suite, wrapped in the warm and comfortable clothes he'd been wearing earlier, Loki glares green fire at him. "Finally! I'll meet you outside, if you make it that far."

And he's out the door into the hallway and gone so fast Tony genuinely isn't sure if he'd actually opened it. But unless he can walk through walls – which would explain how he got in here to begin with – he must have and Tony's just not fully awake yet, incapable of comprehending why Loki can't hold still for three seconds.

But hell, it's not like he needs a full night of sleep every night, especially not when this playful little game they have is back on, the buzz revving up through his veins. Even if it's sending him out in the middle of the night, chasing blindly after Loki, there's no real night in Las Vegas…and chasing after him is how the game _works_.

Loki runs, and Tony follows heedlessly, and Loki slows and waits for him to catch up a little way, just enough to keep the chase entertaining, and where the hell he's being led, Tony still doesn't know and he's given up caring. He'll find out when he gets there. It'll be fun. The way bungee-jumping off the Stratosphere is fun.

There is, of course, no sign of his mad friend when the elevator lets out on the first floor, or anywhere beneath the glass extravaganza of the lobby ceiling, or along the long sweep of valet-studded driveway that awaits just outside. The cool of the desert winter reaches down to bite into his lungs, tinged with charred steak from the barbecue restaurant along the lake and a whiff of cigarette smoke from one of the valets, all overlaid with the crisp freshwater smell of the fountains, spouting purple-lit water at the moon somewhere up there beyond all the neon.

"Where the hell did you go?" Tony mutters to himself, and adds, affectionately enough, "Lunatic."

Any second now a valet is going to ask if he needs a car, so he turns off towards the lake. The barbecue smells really good.

Loki intercepts him before he gets that far, appearing out of the darkness like a ghost and catching his wrist in an iron grip, and before he even has time to jump in surprise, Tony finds himself turned about 180 degrees and being half-dragged down the Strip.

"There you are at last, I thought you would tarry there all night, oh good, you're wearing _shoes_ ," Loki rattles, seemingly not expecting any sort of reply, which is a good thing, because Tony has no idea what he's talking about.

"Are we going somewhere?" he manages to ask, torn between trotting to keep up and setting his heels into the ground and refusing to move without a proper explanation. "Dear god, you're hyper. Is it a full moon or something? Wind out of the west? Shit. Someone gave you a Red Bull, didn't they? Science _has_ gone too far."

The magician tosses a grin back at him, and the hand around his wrist slips into his as Loki tugs on him, urging him to keep up. Tony gives up on his dignity – hah! Like he has dignity – and trots.

"Can I not be merely pleased to see you? To have something I _can_ share with you, for all you scold me for my secrets?"

"Or you're just all-around crazy. You could have seen me tomorrow," Tony points out, despite feeling like someone's let a happy puppy loose in his stomach, warm and wriggling and delighted to be making itself comfortable. "Or any of the last three days I've been here. I was starting to think – I thought you might be tired of me."

God, he hopes Loki doesn't find out that he'd spend the last half of that time wheedling and bribing his way backstage on every show he's ever found a trace of Loki's touch on, trying to find someone who knew where he was, if he was all right, because the bastard _won't answer his phone_.

"No, no, nothing of the sort, I assure you!" Loki's accent is thicker than usual, his phrasing more formal despite his wild behavior. Tony should have been looking for Shakespeare festivals, not magic shows. "I was away, and returned only a moment past, and tomorrow will _not_ serve. Now hush, and we won't be seen."

They haven't gone far, just a few buildings down, and there was a dash across the Strip at some point, and Loki has just sidestepped into the shadow of a cluster of palm trees, pulling Tony with him.

"Planet Hollywood. Yeah? And? Why've we come here?"

It used to be the Aladdin, and some of those bones still show, but the renovations to change the theme under new management are well underway. The giant globe out front is lit up and everything, and tourists are pouring in, replacing those leaving laden down with bags of purchases from the new Hollywood memorabilia flea market and the reliable old desert-themed bazaar. Because there wasn't enough desert around here to begin with. Oh no. Las Vegas has to import _custom_ desert, that's how mad this place is.

"Oh, not there," Loki dismisses Planet Hollywood with a gesture, and then points. " _There._ "

 _There_ is the new wing, still a skeleton of beams and girders and fenced-off construction equipment, tower cranes rearing up to be a disjointedly ordinary part of the toy box Vegas skyline. _There_ is the active construction zone with the Keep Out signs.

 _There_ is the top of it all.

"No," says Tony, just on reflex.

"I dare you," says Loki, laughing.

"Oh, that's so not fair."

"I," Loki says grandly, "do not play fair." The grin turns into something that's pure mischief _._ "Come on. We won't be seen."

And somehow they're not. Everyone's too wrapped up in their own entertainment, blinded by the neon and the strobe lights and the flare of the Mirage volcano further down the street and the eye-watering Luxor spotlight, to notice as Loki slips around the fencing and beckons Tony through a gap in it before he can even ask, as the moon comes out from behind the last cloud and the edges of things come into slightly brighter, sharper relief.

Loki turns his face up to it like it's a wonder, and Tony gives a second thought to his admittedly not very original full moon/lunatic behavior theory.

Especially because his friend's next words are, "Catch me."

And at once he's running for the skeleton of the building, swinging himself to the roof of a bulldozer as easily as most people skip stairs, and from there on to one of the half-built platforms that, one day, will be buried beneath concrete and carpet, the bones of it hidden far beneath.

"You are _mad_ ," Tony calls up to him, half delighted and half horrified, trying to keep his voice down and shout at the same time. There's a layer of him that goes to Board meetings and talks seriously to generals and staff sergeants alike about payloads and delivery systems, and signs paperwork, and plans expansions into South Africa, but not very deep underneath there's a punk-genius kid flipping off the world, and the punk-genius kid is laughing his ass off and yelling _go, go, go!_

"Name your forfeit, if you like," Loki answers, moonlight and neon reflecting off the bulldozer's window and highlighting pale skin and razor smile.

 _A kiss_ , Tony thinks, because he hasn't had enough sleep and his heart is racing, and because they were _good_ dreams, and so help him, he's climbing.

"A question," he says instead. "With an honest answer."

"If you catch me!" and Loki's gone.

Tony does not back down from challenges. He climbs.

It's a patchwork structure, not nearly done, barely even building-shaped. If the sun was up and he was looking at it from outside he might be able to pick out kitchens and staging areas, bedrooms and bathrooms and gift shops, stores and laundry chutes and the way the plumbing brings the body of it all to life like a circulatory system.

But in the half-dark of the Vegas night, it's a maze where a step wrong will send him crashing to his death, broken apart on the blunt knife of an I-beam or crushed between gravity's unforgiving force and concrete's unyielding objections. And there's so much more _up_ to go than _down_.

Wood rasps across his hands, metal chills and clings, sawdust puffs out at him, sheets of plastic whisper in the desert wind as it ventures into this new obstacle in its way. Empty skeletons of rooms gape like mouths – it's old houses that get the reputation for being haunted, but the sheer vacancy of these is almost as spooky.

Tony does quite well for himself, he thinks, not giving up, refusing to be deterred, chasing some combination of white rabbit and Cheshire cat as haplessly as any girl in a blue pinafore, and maybe this _is_ a dream after all.

…right up until he steps up to an abyss that might have made the Balrog hand in its whip and slink off home, with the only way back a descent that will take him the rest of the night to make up for, and the only way across a single, narrow beam.

But the footsteps he's been tracking for the past thirty seconds haven't led him wrong, and he steps out into the open just in time to see Loki take the last few strides across it with absolute confidence and turn back to face him across the gulf.

"Come on," Loki calls to him again, eyes glittering. "You're almost there."

Tony croaks out, "You come here often, then?"

"I like heights."

"You're high on something, all right. I –" Tony cuts himself off. He can't bear to say _I can't do this_ , but neither can he bear to fall short now, not with those eyes watching him, and that smile less mocking than…anxious, almost.

As if Loki hopes that he'll dare to follow.

"Do you trust me?" Loki asks, stretching out a hand to him in invitation.

It's a stupid question, but Tony asks it. "Should I?"

Loki's smile is the death of angels; Lucifer, laughing. "No," he says, meeting Tony's gaze straight on. "Trust me anyway."

Every scrap of Tony's body says _nonononono!_

 _But._

But bright eyes, and the puzzle, and wonders so close to magic that they'll _do,_ for lack of the real thing, and that Tony is drunk on them, on him; that he hasn't been so awake and alive in _weeks;_ that everything else he understands, _except…_

But that he suspects he may be this bizarre, intoxicating man's only real friend, and it's not like Tony doesn't know what it's like to be all but alone in every way that matters.

He steps out onto the beam, and he holds Loki's gaze like it's a lifeline, and follows his mad, mad, _mad_ friend.

And when he wavers, at the very last, his tree-climbing ancestors long lost in the depths of time, he only has a moment for a split-second of panic before Loki's there, quick as thought. Hands on his biceps steady him, and Tony looks up into a look of utter amazement.

"I did not think you would," says Loki, very softly. "Not far now."

 _Catch me_ is forgotten, and three turns and a workman's ladder later they're at the top, out in the open, Las Vegas spread out beneath their feet.

 _I like heights_ , Loki had said, and _I returned only a moment past_ , and _something I can share_ , and _can I not merely be glad to see you?_

"Hi," Tony says, and since Loki's still keeping him steady, steps just the little bit closer it takes to put his head against the taller man's shoulder.

He could have done without the trust fall, but he's glad to see Loki too.

They end up sitting together on the edge of the roof, shoulder-to-shoulder, although Tony isn't quite as eager to let his feet hang free off the side and has them crossed beneath him in a nice, stable tailor's seat. His heart is screaming, still, and his breathing has yet to go back to normal. His ears are ringing like he hasn't put his hearing protection in properly during a field-of-fire test, and he's pretty sure his hands would be shaking if he could persuade them to let go of the denim of his jeans.

Those long-forgotten ancestors were, after all, the ones who couldn't hack it in the sleeping-while-holding-on event at the Evolympics and decided wobbling was something they could live with – for real though – better on the ground.

Holy shit, adrenaline's a hell of a drug.

"Are you even real?" he says finally, prying a hand free and flicking a tiny pebble into space.

"Is that your question?"

"What, I still get one? Fantastic. Actually, you _definitely_ owe me that forfeit. Never make me do that again. No, that's not my question. But seriously."

"Do you imagine I'm not?" Loki sounds genuinely curious.

"Do you always answer questions with questions?"

"Do you?"

"I _will_ punch you," Tony says, as matter-of-factly as he can.

Loki laughs, stretching his arms out behind him and leaning back; moonlight turns him to marble. "And I tremble."

Tony has no recourse but to punch him. But not much. No harder than he'd knock on a door.

"Huh. Real. Can I save my question for some time when my brain has stopped stuttering?" He realizes too late that _that's_ a question with an easy answer. Fortunately, Loki lets it be.

"Another time, then," Loki agrees, and in a disbelieving undertone Tony's not sure he was meant to overhear, adds, "You _trusted_ me."

"No, hang on, I've got one. Where _did_ you go? You said you'd just come back."

"Oh. Your – Europe. I'm not…" He trails off.

"An _honest_ answer, Loki, I've earned at least one."

His expression turns wry. "I'm not from here. But this, you knew."

"That much, at least, yeah."

"I tire of deserts, sometimes, and the artifice of this place. I can work my craft here, yes, but… I ran, before I once again broke something I could not repair. I sought places more familiar to my eyes than this one."

 _Call me next time_ , hovers on the tip of Tony's tongue. _I'll take you anywhere you want to go._ He understands needing to get away.

 _We'll go together._

Instead, he says, "Why do I suspect that was honest, but not complete?"

Loki grins at him, melancholy broken. "If you were stupid, I wouldn't keep company with you."

It turns out there's an easier way down.

 _Bastard._

* * *

 _twelve_

Tony's come to think of Las Vegas as _his_ place, somewhere he goes to get away from everyone else in his life. He's not keeping _secrets_ from anyone, exactly…

Wait, no. Yes, he is.

It shouldn't be a problem that Obie's come to the annual Army Corps of Engineers conference – it has a long military-speak name and moves about and doesn't get advertised to the general public – because they're a team, as Obie likes to say, and they've known each other since Tony was learning to crawl. And he trusts the man completely. Obie was there for him when he felt like the world was ending. He was there backing Tony up when he was twenty-one and angry and dealing with old farts who looked at him askance and then looked right through him because he was young and not his father, but when they looked through Tony Stark they found Obadiah Stane standing right behind him. Obie steadies him and makes him slow down and look at things logically, practically, calmly, and above all else rationally.

And Tony could just see how this trip was going to go. He and Obie would be out for drinks or something, planning the best people to pitch to so that Stark Industries would get first crack at whatever problem they had – the Army Corps of Engineers has _so_ many problems they need to solve right now – and at some point when he was least expecting it there would be a hand on his shoulder and he'd look up and see Loki there.

And Obie would say, "Tony, who's this?" in that patient, mildly disappointed voice.

And what the _hell_ was he going to say?

He could already see the look in Obie's eyes, just knew what Loki would look like to Tony's mentor. Oh, Obie would be polite in public, but the moment they were alone it would be all, _Tony, Tony, you can't be this gullible. I thought you knew better than to fool around with trashy Vegas glitterboys, of all possible things to do! Just look at him! You're being played! Haven't you gotten over those silly little indulgences of yours? Stick to the pretty girls, Tony, and everything will be okay._

 _Trust me._

And Tony would protest _it's not like that, he's a friend_ , and Obie would laugh and wrap an arm around his shoulders and shake him and say _you can't really believe that_.

 _Now, you'll stay away from him, won't you?_

The hell of it is, Obie's probably right. Loki doesn't trust Tony an inch, or Tony would know who he really was by now. And everybody wants something, especially from him; that's just human nature, and the fact that Tony isn't wise to Loki's game yet just means the man's playing an especially long one.

The hell of it is, Tony doesn't really care.

He can't explain Loki to Obie – to anyone, even to himself – and why the hell should he need to? For all his secrets, all his evasions, all his mystery, all the _danger_ Tony spots sometimes, glinting from the edges of his smile like the edges of a knife, Loki makes him happy. They have fun together. And maybe it's _because_ of those things that everyone else would consider Important Red Flags.

It's that look of disappointment in Obie's eyes he can't bear to see. He wouldn't be able to stand having Obie look at him – again: oh, he knows that look well – like he's a dumb fifteen-year-old and sigh, because he knows from previous experiences that Obie's disappointed expression will live inside him and mud-puddle its way out when it's least wanted.

 _Mine, mine, mine_ , something inside Tony is yelling, and he doesn't want to share.

He's been snappy and withdrawn and sullen for most of the convention, on edge and jumpy, so bad that even _he_ could tell that he was pissing people off, and finally he'd made his apologies and just left.

He turned his cell phone off, and he went looking for somewhere to hide, the least likely place for him to be that wasn't a tiger habitat. Although he'd considered that.

Which is why he's watching big men in inefficient-looking suits of armor charge around on horses, talking in hearty Renaissance Fair lingo and dueling for the honor of the Queen of Camelot – or at least of Excalibur, the determinedly Arthurian-by-way-of-Hollywood and extremely castle-shaped resort.

Tony vaguely remembers this story. He thinks Lancelot is due to show up at some point.

At the next table over, a trio of kids scream excitedly as one of the horses rears up and the rider drops his broken lance and draws a sword instead, waving it over his head in a way that somehow doesn't decapitate his horse as well. The sound joins the chorus of high-pitched voices shrilling throughout the auditorium. There are so many kids at this show.

Another reason Tony usually wouldn't be here.

Tournament of Kings is a weird show. Everywhere else in Las Vegas tries to be the height of luxury, ever more elaborate, but the tables strewn around the auditorium are on packed earth and scattered straw, and the waitstaff are dressed as serfs and…yes, Tony's going to have to go with _wenches_ , peasant blouses and crude sandals and only the kid-friendly environment keeping the pushup bras at home. Horses prance among the tables, carefully avoiding the small children whose parents were told to keep them close at hand anyway, and no one has been given any silverware.

The kids seem to love that bit, making an enormous mess as they tear apart hanks of meat and yelling with delight when they discover the plates are made out of bread. They can _eat_ the _plate!_

Lancelot charges onto the stage on an actual white horse, and the crowd roars as he proclaims – yes, that's the only word for it – that despite his banishment from Camelot a couple of scenes ago, he must return to assist his queen in her hour of need, and so on, and so forth. The speech goes on for a while. Tony rolls his eyes. Heroes.

"At least he's not blond," says Loki.

Tony doesn't quite jump, but he does put his elbow down rather suddenly onto his bread-plate of roast chicken…or where it would have been, were it not on the other side of the table, where Loki is calmly and neatly shredding it into edible-sized pieces and, appropriately enough, eating it.

"Have my food, why don't you?" Tony tosses back, manfully not cradling his tingling arm as the jolted nerves whine.

"Oh, did you want it?"

"No," he admits. "You can have it. I'm not really a 'wrench food apart with my hands' kind of person. Although…I wouldn't have pegged you as one, either, but there you are." He watches those long fingers make quick work of the sauce-slathered meat. "How do you do that? And don't say magic."

That gets him a laugh. "Not at all. Merely practice. Magic is not encouraged at the table."

"Is that a fact?"

"So I've been repeatedly told. What brought you here? This isn't where I would have sought you."

"Exactly."

"Ah."

Loki pushes the bread-plate – trencher, that's what it's called, Tony _knew_ someone had used the word during the pre-show announcements – into the middle of the table, and raises an eyebrow at him.

"Dammit, I don't need you to cut up my food for me like I'm four."

"So don't eat it."

Tony wars with himself very briefly and loses. And/or wins.

"Did people ever really talk like this?" he says through a mouthful of chicken. King Arthur is making a long speech full of _thee_ sand _thous_ and _wheresoever_ s. Any second now he's going to say _forsooth._ In the time it's taken him to make it, the remaining knights could have swarmed Lancelot and the rescued/willingly abducted Guinevere, who, despite being super-extra-banished from Camelot in the first sentence, have stuck around to hear the rest."Maybe it was just the politicians. Nothing changes."

"They did," Loki shrugs as Tony scoots his chair around the table so that neither of them has to stretch and they're not doing the dumb medieval opposite-ends-of-the-table thing. There are limits to authenticity. If they're eating together, sharing not just a table but a plate, they might as well eat together. "Some still do. But if you see any of them around here, it's a stranger day than usual."

"Strange? In Las Vegas? Get out."

"I'd quite like to see that." The magician licks a drop of sauce very delicately from one finger, and Tony decides firstly to take his table manners cue from him and secondly to remind himself to watch the show. The one on the stage. Also, why is upper-class-Victorian-British-sounding Loki – who is for some reason wearing a suit that looks so good on him it should be _illegal_ – so damn comfortable wading into medieval food with his bare hands? "Do tell me, if you encounter any of them."

"Guess you'll have to answer your phone to find out."

Loki doesn't promise to do so, but Tony hadn't expected anything else.

The show goes on quite literally around them. Horses are big close up. How true to the myths they're being, Tony has no idea. He doesn't care that much; he's more worried about how he's going to warn Loki about Obie, or even if he should, or even if anyone else but him cares. None of the sentences in his head are very good. They all trail off into confused-sounding attempts to define exactly why he doesn't want the magician anywhere near his mentor, and get bogged down into possessive declarations that range from sappy to creepy.

Most of them end in Loki snarling _I'm not yours, Stark, haven't I made that clear?_ at him and stalking off, so that's not a preferred outcome.

"Any of the effects in here your genius tech, then?" he asks instead.

"Oh, some of them. Merlin's spells are mine, in truth – do not laugh, Tony, you still may not call me that."

Tony moves his cup – it's probably called a goblet, that sounds like a thing Tournament of Kings would insist on – to the side so he can drop his head to the table dramatically. "All my _jokes,_ man…" he says in place of _goddammit, I knew it, why won't you let me in on this?_

The Merlin on stage had done the bit with turning Arthur into different animals, and sure, that could be done with smoke and a good trapdoor and trained circus animals, but Tony had wondered. The animals had been slightly too well-behaved to be real.

"They had a fairly interesting dragon, when I first came along. It broke, last year, and I was asked to repair it. We agreed that I would do so – provided they ceased to yell at me when I refused to show them how the work was done, or how to repair it in the future." Oh, the disdain in that Masterpiece Theater voice…

"And now?"

Loki smiles _trouble_. "Now," he says simply, "they have a more interesting dragon."

"I'll keep an eye out for it," Tony offers.

"You won't have to look very hard."

Or wait very long. A minute later, a poisonously purple beast the size of an eighteen-wheeler lumbers out on stage and starts swiping at the walls of Camelot. The knights saddle up and charge as the crowd yells and applauds. Someone who was probably planted in the audience starts slamming his wooden mug against the table, and at once most of the room follows his lead. Various liquids fly everywhere.

Tony vaguely wishes for some coconut shells to clack together. "You made that?" he leans to the side and asks.

"No. That, they had to begin with."

The dragon rears back, seems to draw in a breath, and roars out a _firestorm_ that engulfs the knights. The plume of fire is bright and living and furious, entirely realistic, and tiny flames catch on the wooden structures on the walls of Camelot. It cuts off a moment later, but an impressive moment, and the knights emerge from it with shields raised defensively.

The horses scatter in retreat, their banners and trappings and in one case a tail smoking, and the dragon stomps around the stage roaring its triumph.

Then it turns its muzzle on the audience, and breathes fire over the heads of the entire auditorium.

Kids scream in earnest, and Tony can't blame them. Looking upwards, it's like being inside one of California's all-too-common forest fires, and there's real _heat_ on his face, the skin pulling tight.

As soon as it stops – it couldn't have been more than a second or two, but it felt like an eternity – the knights charge back on stage to "save" the audience from the beast, regrouped and rearmed, and Lancelot has turned up on his white horse to take the lead. A torrent of applause and cheering greets them, but whether it's for the knights or the dragonfire…

"Holy shit," says Tony.

"That's mine," says Loki, grinning at him over the lip of a wineglass that…had that been there a minute ago?

"Was that real fire? That can't have been real – My _god_ , you're good." Clearly one of the wench-servers had stopped by their table while Tony was distracted, because there's a second glass by his hand. The hand he picks it up with is shaking, less from fear – Loki had sort of warned him, hadn't he? – than from desperate, hungry _need_.

 _That_ , he thinks. _I must have that. And you. Definitely also you._

"It's a much better dragon now."

"Can't argue with that."

The knights slay the dragon. The crowd applauds. Loki grimaces. Tony asks why and is told that dragons are smarter than that, which he decides not to make an issue of.

The show ends on a happier note than Tony remembers Arthurian legend going. But hey, kids in the audience and all.

After the show, the knights walk their horses around between the tables for excited children to pet. They're enormous animals with fluffy ankles, built to bear the weight of fit men and antiquated metallurgy. They're remarkably patient with the small people who swarm around them, poking and patting, although Tony sees one actor carefully stopping a kid from trying to fit his entire tiny hand in the horse's nose.

They're so well-behaved that it comes as a surprise to Tony when the nearest one turns its head to aim one huge, dark eye seemingly at him. It whuffs and paws – hooves? – at the ground, and practically pulls its rider over to their table, steps careful but insistent, paying no attention to the man who quickly gives up on tugging on its bridle and instead tries to pretend that a ton of renegade horseflesh is totally under control.

"I think the word is _whoa,_ " Tony ventures as it approaches, but Loki's on his feet and raising his hands, actually _chirruping_ to the horse as it noses at him.

There's a real smile on his face, not _the_ Real Smile but something more open, as he strokes the horse's striped face between its eyes – there's probably a word for that, Tony will have to ask – and whuffs back at it as it butts its head against his chest, shedding horsehair all over the gorgeous suit. Loki doesn't appear to notice.

"Oh, it's you," the rider – was he Gawaine? Tony lost track – says, emerging from behind his horse. "Should have known. He helped train them not to run away from that big flash at the end," he adds to Tony.

"I do miss horses," Loki says, almost meditatively. He's produced – Tony is really on a roll tonight – what looks like half an apple from nowhere at all and is letting the horse eat it out of his hand with no concern for the safety of those lovely fingers. "Of all the things you've put aside… No, bold one, no more. Oh, very well." Half an apple must not be very much, for such a big animal. Loki offers it the other half, and Tony misses where _that_ one came from, too.

"Loki," Gawaine protests, "we're supposed to be greeting the actual tourists…"

"Yes, of course. Go on, bold one." Loki slaps the horse's big shoulder affectionately, pushing it away, and to Tony's surprise it goes. The magician must be stronger than he looks.

After they've moved on, Tony steps up to Loki's side and maybe kicks his boot just a little bit to get his attention, and then forgets what he was going to say.

 _Not boring_. Tony's crazy about this man.

Loki takes pity on him. "Men can be told that a fire isn't real," he says mildly. "Horses must be persuaded by someone they trust. They are good, strong animals, and I was pleased to find them here."

Six more horses insist on greeting Loki before he and Tony manage to leave the auditorium, by which point Tony's stopped worrying about what Obie's going to say in favor of worrying that one of the horses is going to bite his hand off when Loki insists that he too should have a chance to feed them mysteriously-appearing apple slices.

Neither Obie nor bitten fingers materialize.

Also, Tony gets an idea.

* * *

 _thirteen_

 _meet me outside the Venetian tomorrow morning?_ Tony texts the phone he'd pressed on his friend. He's been pretty good – he thinks – about not texting Loki incessantly. It helps that most of the time, the texts he does send go unanswered.

Still, he persists.

He makes it through an hour and forty-two minutes of reading a technical manual Rhodey sent him yesterday, not entirely upside-down off the edge of the couch, before adding _please?_

Another fifty-six minutes – not that anyone's counting – go by before an answer comes back. _All right._

 _9:30 I'm driving keep an eye out see you then_ , Tony shoots back, adding _thanks_ at the last second. He can't take the whole day off tomorrow, because he's actually kind of interested in the exhibit the Atomic Testing Museum at UNLV is putting up with some of Howard's stuff, but nobody needs him there first thing in the morning. It'll be fine. Mostly because it's just going to have to be, and if anyone red-haired and Pepper-shaped or suit-wearing and marketing-director-sized doesn't like it, they can go out for sandwiches or do something similarly useful.

It's a college campus. There have to be sandwiches somewhere.

* * *

Tony was starting to wonder when someone was going to kick the Corvette out of the curbside parking space, since he'd been leaning against its side and scanning the passing parade for what had to be at least fifteen minutes. So he'd been a little early, entertaining vague ideas of at least being able to spot which direction his friend was going to show up from.

No such luck. A cluster of tourists goes by, stumbling over each other's feet as they argue over their itinerary for the day and wrestle with the map they're all trying to hold at once, moving slower than rush hour in Los Angeles. The moment they've cleared Tony's field of vision, his eyes fix on the man trailing his fingers in one of the fountains on the other side of the sidewalk, resplendent in the deep green and black he seems to favor.

And suddenly everything's better. The nagging suspicion that the museum exhibit this afternoon is going to be a paean to Howardness gets brushed aside, because this morning there's just a nice car and an open road and his strangest friend.

"Hey you," Tony says in greeting, pushing his sunglasses up into his hair and leaving them there. Convertibles have to be driven with sunglasses on bright sunny perfect Las Vegas days. It's a rule. "Going my way?"

It's a terrible line, and Loki gives it the respect it deserves, which is to say, none at all. But Tony refuses to be cowed, countering his friend's exasperated sigh with a split-second clap on the shoulder. "Let's go. Get in the car, it's a long way to run."

"And where is that?" Loki looks at the car as if it's some alien contraption.

"What, you don't trust me?"

"I didn't say that."

Oh, and that's rich, given how much Tony's fallen into trusting _him._ About time Tony got to push back just a bit. "I'm all out of construction zones," Tony deadpans at him. "I mean, I'm _not_ , but none of them are here. Just get in the car already, would you?"

Loki rolls his eyes and gets in the car.

"Awesome. Whoops, meter reader. Hang on."

And the Corvette takes off with a bone-shuddering roar, and Tony's totally happy, balancing his prototype phone on the narrow dashboard and calling home the second he's not wrestling with the steering to keep the Corvette from chasing down and eating other cars.

"Hey JARVIS," he says when the call connects, "how about getting me those directions I asked for? A bit at a time, phone's got GPS, no point spoiling the surprise. Oh, hey, Loki, this is JARVIS, by the way. He's an AI. An artificial intelligence? He runs my…well, everything that Pepper doesn't, mostly. I call him my robot butler sometimes."

"A mechanical mind?" Loki asks, interested. He reaches out to touch the phone's screen for a moment before apparently thinking better of it. "Of course, only its – his, did you say? – voice. Remarkable."

Tony beams at him. "He's the best. You didn't hear me say that, JARVIS."

" _Of course not, sir,"_ says JARVIS. _"A pleasure to meet you at last, Mr. Loki. You have certainly been keeping sir entertained, judging by the stories he's seen fit to share. Turn east – that's right, sir – at the next intersection."_

"Oh, don't do that," Loki grimaces. "I've never grown accustomed to it. My name as it is will be fine."

" _As you wish."_

Tony chips in with, "Yeah, he's picky about that. There are so many jokes I can't make. Worth it, though, sometimes he actually answers texts. And don't carry tales out of school, JARVIS, seriously, man."

"Are there many like you?" Loki asks JARVIS curiously, and Tony smiles, pleased. Most people don't talk to JARVIS like he's a person – which, to be fair, he's technically _not_ – but Loki seems to have skipped right past the "asking Tony questions about JARVIS" stage to the "asking JARVIS questions about JARVIS" one.

Is JARVIS self-aware? Not Tony's problem. He seems to be. And Tony likes him a lot more than a few states' worth of carbon-based people. That's what matters.

" _Not up to my standards, no. I am the only one to date,"_ JARVIS says proudly. _"Sir has refused to share the specifics of how I was created, or indeed to publicize my true capabilities."_

"Remarkable indeed, then. And he scolds me for my secrets."

"Hey. _Hey._ Low blow, man. I will turn this car around."

"No you won't."

Damn the man. He's right. Tony changes the subject before even JARVIS can start snickering at him.

Trying to watch Loki out of the corner of his eye and drive at the same time – he can multitask – Tony spots something new. "Hey, someone put a Jedi braid in your hair." Out of the ever-staring spotlight of the Strip, and with probably no one watching, he can't help but reach out and brush his fingers down that long mane of dark hair. "Neat."

"What?" Loki sounds genuinely baffled, and one hand shifts just slightly as if to brush Tony's away.

But he doesn't, so maybe it's okay, in which case, jackpot.

Appropriately enough.

"Not a prequels fan," Tony says approvingly. "Good for you. I like it. Actually, I bet you did that."

"I don't…I _do_ know what you're talking about." Well, good, because otherwise Tony really would have turned this car around, but to abduct him to Malibu and _make_ him watch _Star Wars._ Actually, that sounds like a plan. Not the prequels, though. Who doesn't get _Star Wars_ references? "And why do you say that?"

"You have nice hands."

JARVIS, mercifully, knows how to hold his virtual tongue except for a discreet, _"Stay on this road, sir."_ Unless that's relationship advice, in which case shut the hell up, JARVIS.

"Anyway," Tony rolls on, "I know what I've been doing, what about you? That guy…whatshisname…the short guy with what I think was an Australian accent, based on your imitation of it, which was _hilarious,_ by the way, can you do it again sometime? Yeah, that guy, you know who I mean. He still driving you nuts?"

"Oh, him." Loki sighs, relaxing into the movement of the car and staring idly at the passing scenery, eyes far away. "He has one of the larger stages to work with now, open and spare, cameras and eyes from all sides. His latest bright idea is that he wants his props and assistants to be invisible until he touches them."

"Can you do that?"

"Of course. Invisibility is easy."

 _Argh, want want want…_ No, no, it's not, and even the best camouflage suits Stark Industries or anyone else in the military market can put out don't even come close. Which is the problem. The closer an observer gets, the less invisible the suit-wearer seems. "You say that like it's obvious. Do you know –"

"Tony?"

"Yeah?"

"No."

"Damn."

He gets a brief, sideways smile, at least, a bit mocking, a bit…affectionate? All amused. No hard feelings for trying, as long as he takes the hint.

"The problem isn't my craft. It's that the man cannot remember where his props _are_."

Tony thinks about it for a second and starts laughing. "So –"

"Yes. The idiot keeps running into them."

As Tony drives, Loki tells him about the woman who wants miniature holograms of herself on satellite stages, and the show that's insisting on an interactive, responsive cat-sized griffin that needs to go where it's sent on voice commands regardless of who's talking to it or accent or pitch or pronunciation, and what seems to be an honest-to-goodness teleportation box that the magician insists _doesn't scale_ to human-sized, not reliably.

"They may have a smaller device, or they may solve their own problems," Loki concludes, scowling.

"Wait, I've seen a couple of those boxes. I love those things! I spent almost an hour dropping stuff into one and watching it reappear all around the room before the director showed up and threatened to call the casino security on me. Tons of fun, even more maddening. I _still_ can't figure out how they work, I bribed the conjurer to let me move it around the room and turn it upside down and shake it and nothing I did made a bent penny's worth of difference. I mean, when I say I love those boxes, what I'm saying is that I was thirty seconds away from taking it apart with a screwdriver, which is probably why the director kicked me out. …Why doesn't it scale?" Tony asks instead of _how does that work?_

"Invisibility is easy, it's only… That is, to move the amount of mass he wants it to, I'd require much more power than is available. The city looks unkindly on my draining all the power from its lights and machines."

Tony doesn't quite hit the brakes, but it's a close call. The plume of dust trailing away behind the car maybe gets a bit thicker as the tires crunch into the only mostly paved road. But they're outrunning it, and the wind's cooperating, so he's left the top down, and it's doing things to Loki's long hair that Tony's quite enjoying watching. "Wait, you blacked out Las Vegas? When was this? And why didn't you invite me to come watch, Loki, that would have been hilarious!"

"I did not," Loki protests halfheartedly, smirking. "I only _thought_ about it, when they continued to pester me, and I assure you I would _not_ have remained to take the blame."

"So the only real problem's the power curve, and that's why it doesn't scale?"

"No, it… Because it _doesn't,_ and if I wanted you to understand my methods then you _would._ "

"Right, right."

After a second, Tony ventures, "You don't actually _like_ Las Vegas, do you?" _Aloof_ , that was the word that woman had used, the one who'd told him Loki didn't have friends, and Tony's seen nothing in the couple of years since to contradict it. Most people in Las Vegas are excited to be there, or pleased, or smug, or proud. There's a sense of community and commitment among the people Tony's talked to that's totally absent from the way Loki talks about it, as if it's a temporary and mildly annoying pit stop that nevertheless needs minor repairs.

He's there. But he persistently doesn't belong.

"Hah. It is, perhaps, the most suitable place for my particular talents. You cannot imagine, Tony…" Loki sighs, twining that tiny braid around his fingers, and the shadow of a scowl crosses his face. "That the things I can do should be admired, and praised – that is rare enough. But I tire of humanity, sometimes."

Resentment lies heavy in his voice, and Tony doesn't fight him when Loki changes the subject.

Loki's telling him – with more enthusiasm – about the Egyptian demons he's creating for KÁ, which have to go from miniature props to thirty-six-foot-tall three-dimensional menaces, turn translucent, appear to fly, and, in one scene, rip each other to shreds over the heads of the audiences, when JARVIS steers them around one more bend in the increasingly rough road and Loki cuts off mid-word.

"What is this?" he asks suspiciously.

"Red Rock Canyon," Tony answers, because it is, or at least one of the trailheads. "And I know you don't like deserts, but trust me for five more minutes, okay?"

The Corvette looks somewhat out of place, but Tony was all out of pickup trucks, too, and if it's any balm to his car fiend's soul, Loki seems to consider the pickup trucks even more suspicious.

And wouldn't it just be Tony's luck that they don't even make it across the parking lot before a line of tourists on horses follow a rider in a cowboy hat around one of the red-and-orange-and-cream striped ridges and into view?

Loki stops short, staring at them.

He's smart. Tony's sure of that, at least. His surprise is busted at the last second.

"I had to practically threaten to buy this place out before they agreed that maybe they might offer gift memberships after all," Tony tries to explain, squashing the temptation to scratch at his neck like a sheepish anime character. "You said you missed horses. But I'm guessing – I've got to guess, you're _impossible,_ you know that? – that you're probably more an English fox hunt sort of rider than the cowboy thing they've got going on here. There's no getting away from the cowboy thing, sorry, not in the Southwest…"

He gets distracted. "And I'm really, really trying to imagine you in one of those hats, and it's kind of wonderful, actually. Can I buy you, like, a sharp black one with maybe a silver band on it? I know there's a Western gear place on the Strip. Probably seven or so. You don't have to keep it. I just want the memory, and maybe pictures. Although they might be happier to let you ride out by yourself – I bullied and/or bribed them into that too – if you kept it. They'll probably fold you into one of their tours as a lone ranger's ghost or something, or, I don't know, a lone bandit, maybe."

Totally, totally babbling, but Tony's not good at being nice to people who haven't asked for spontaneous gifts he's trying to push on them and who are instead staring at him like _he's_ an alien. Although, hell, Loki does keep insisting that he's from space, even if he smiles as he does.

"And I know it's a bit off what seems to be your regular beat – as far as I know – but if you can get yourself to Europe and back, I'm guessing you can get yourself twenty miles from the Strip without much difficulty. And would you goddamn _say_ something, Loki? You're killing me here. I will keep talking. Consider yourself warned. And it's only going to get stupider. Help me out."

"…you found me horses?" Loki says at last, and Tony has never, _never_ seen that expression on his friend's face before. He's gone completely blank, the tiny smirk that usually floats around the corners of his narrow lips washed away, long hair still tangled from riding around in the open-topped convertible.

"Yes, I found you horses."

"I don't understand, why would you…"

"Oh, for crying out loud." Tony actually throws his hands in the air. Wow. He thought that only happened in movies. "Dammit, Loki, I'm trying to be nice to you. Accept the gift, okay?"

He's never had to yell at someone to give them something, but then, _not boring_.

"What do you mean, why? Because I _like_ you, you mad idiot. Although sometimes I have no idea why. Because –" Flailing is nice, he should flail more often. Flailing is good for his probably nonexistent soul. "Do you have any idea how many meetings I get through by wondering what the hell you're going to come up with next time I see you? And I'm always wrong. Do you know how rare that is? And because – except for that stunt with the construction zone, and that doesn't count, because I think you were trying to be nice to _me_ – you've never asked me for anything. That _never_ happens. _Never._ "

He's done. Deep breath.

No, he's not.

"Because you don't seem to care how much money I have or that my company blows crap and bad guys up for a living, and you've never called me a war profiteer or tried to make me feel guilty for having more money than God and using it to run around the world having fun, which usually happens in, like, the third sentence of someone new talking to me. And most people are _so_ boring, but you keep me guessing, and I can come here and hang out with you and that's…"

Oh, who is he kidding? Tony has no idea what that is. _Nice_ doesn't cover it. _Different_ doesn't come close.

Tony gives up. "Just like the horses, okay?"

Loki blinks. Twice.

Tony's counting.

"I like the horses, Tony," he says meekly. "I – thank you."

"Good," Tony says, glaring.

The barest shade of a smile quirks at the edge of the magician's mouth, and Tony holds the glare for several more seconds before he starts to laugh.

"I don't even know," he complains, throwing his arms wide, and all the breath's knocked out of him all over again when Loki steps into the span of those arms and wraps a hand around the back of Tony's neck.

For a split second Tony thinks the magician is going to kiss him, and part of him screams _oh god please yes!_ and the rest kicks it in the stomach and yells _public!_ but all Loki does is bend his head and touch his forehead to Tony's so that they're breathing the same air.

"It's kind," Loki says softly. "Thank you. But –" and _there's_ the smile, only almost as close as it can get, and if anything it's _better_ , and adrenaline slams into Tony's system like a drug. "– no hat, all right?"

"Oh, come on!"

* * *

"Wow, I'm introducing you to everyone today," says Tony as he brings the very dusty Corvette into what must be _his_ parking space, because Pepper is standing at the head of it pointedly _not_ checking her watch.

It means Tony gets a front-row seat to the double-take when she sees the other person in the car. Tony had neglected to tell her he might be bringing a friend, because he honestly didn't know if he would be. But after introducing Loki to the somewhat mulish – hah – owners of the stable, not to mention a minor pissing contest over whether or not Loki knows what he's doing around horses (Tony's going to guess that he does, given that the owners had backed down) he'd said, "So I'm supposed to be down at the Atomic Testing Museum this afternoon to approve of what they've done with a bunch of my dad's stuff. Do you want to come, or…?"

He'd spent much of the drive back into the city trying to persuade Loki that he really _does_ need a cowboy hat. Loki's not going for it.

He said he'd consider the sunglasses, but Tony thinks that was just to shut him up.

"Look, Pepper, I made it. Oh, this is Loki, by the way, who I may have mentioned once or fifteen times. Loki, this is Pepper, likewise may have mentioned once or fifteen times. …Please like each other."

He doesn't quite hold his breath as Pepper and Loki look each other over, both of them poised and calm and noncommittal.

 _Please, please, please like each other…_

"Nice to meet you, Loki," Pepper says calmly, holding out a hand.

Her poker face cracks just a bit when the magician takes her hand and actually _bows_ over it, a perfectly fluid gesture that somehow looks natural on him. Holy shit, Tony's either got a genuine Old World aristocrat or a _very_ practiced actor on his hands – or an absolute and shameless ham – and he really has no idea which.

"A pleasure, Ms. Potts," Loki replies. "Tony speaks most highly of you – and I _will_ carry tales out of school, as you put it, Tony. You do not give orders to _me_ as you do to JARVIS."

Pepper smiles as Tony tries to deny that he was going to do any such thing, since he wasn't.

And that's that.

And yeah, the exhibit is a paean to Howardness, but he'd pretty much expected that. And Pepper's really pleased with what she and her archivists have managed to accomplish, and Loki is genuinely _charming_ to her when he's not matching Tony sass for snark about the hyper-enthusiastic "radioactive crap is the solution to all problems" propaganda in garish primary colors complete with – wouldn't they know it – square-jawed heroic-looking blonds. The marketing director ends up stuck in traffic and seriously delayed, so for a couple of hours it's just Tony and two of his favorite people in the world, which makes it _so_ much easier to look at all the pictures of his father and read all the glowing captions about how great and significant a patriot and scientist Howard had been.

And the Ground Zero Theater is pretty cool.

Okay, the whole museum is pretty cool.

It's a good afternoon.

* * *

 _fourteen_

" _Silvertongue!"_ someone yells.

It's one more meaningless noise amidst the cars honking a symphony of horns at each other, competing with the singing from the Fitz's weeklong pre-St. Patrick's Day pre-party, which has acquired a karaoke machine from some vendor of evil. It's almost lost beneath the ever-present background noise of the slot machines being piped out into the street to lure gamblers in. It's just another voice alongside the chatter of people spilling out of Fremont Street a block or two away, glowing like someone's replaced the canopy with a giant black light.

Actually, that would be amazing, and Tony turns to the man beside him, who might actually be able to make that happen – possibly without anyone knowing in advance – to suggest it, and only then does he see the tension humming through Loki's spare frame and realize that his friend's steps have faltered and slowed as he turns.

"Loki?" Tony ventures, keeping his hands at his sides. He's spent the whole night as they've wandered around downtown resisting the urge to touch him, because there's _famous playboy Tony Stark out on the town with a friend_ and then there's _famous playboy Tony Stark out on the town holding hands with a pretty Vegas boy with a reputation for weird._ One of those options involves both their lives becoming more difficult and the _National Inquirer_ peeing its collective pants and just so much _everything being ruined._ So Tony has, regretfully, crammed that impulse back into its stupid brainbox and carefully, carefully fed it into an industrial-grade furnace.

It keeps coming back like a flaming, lurching zombie, which is a terrible mental image and surely why Tony's starting to feel nervous, because that can't be _fear_ in Loki's eyes and the corner of his mouth, can it? Tony's not even sure what fear looks like on him; confusion, amusement, frustration, yes, but from the moment Tony met him, Loki has always been the one in control.

But the core of downtown is behind them, abandoned at last after Tony had teased Loki remorselessly about the alien-themed _Area 51_ light show and Loki, holding a finger to his lips and smirking, had led him to an overhead balcony that had been _perfect_ for throwing popcorn at people with their faces turned upwards and mouths open.

They ran out of popcorn before that game got old, probably because Tony had eaten and/or dropped at least half a sleeve of it trying to prove that he could catch popcorn in his mouth on purpose, laughing at himself at least as much as Loki was laughing at him. He'd been blackout drunk the last time he'd tried that childish trick, and probably an actual child the time before that, but he didn't care a bit. He's so much _freer_ here, at Loki's side.

They'd briefly considered making a supply run to the M&M Museum, but it was too far south to be convenient. "Chocolate," Loki had said, wondering, "now _that_ was a good idea you people had," and Tony had pretended shock that space didn't have chocolate – maybe that 'save the earth, it's the only planet with chocolate' bumper sticker has something going for it after all.

Loki had condescended to wear a silver-studded black cowboy hat for exactly two seconds before pointing out that the Western wear outfitter also sold riding crops, and he'd escaped while Tony's brain had short-circuited, sputtered, and died like Butterfingers having a lettuce leaf thrown at him.

But he'll always have the memory, if he ever gets those brain cells back.

The night had gone on, and neither of them had been arrested or kicked out of anywhere, and Tony had managed not to say "You know I'm crazy about you, right?" out loud or say anything stupider like "Do you want to come up to my rooms when we get back?" because that's how bad porn movies happen. Even if he is now walking a little closer to his friend than absolutely necessary as they wander the few blocks and side streets south to the Strip proper. There's no rush, and while it's not exactly _dark_ – it's still Las Vegas – it's slightly less neon-lit, and quieter, and Tony doesn't feel like anyone's watching them.

Boy, was he ever wrong.

"Oh no," Loki says in a very quiet voice, for his own ears and maybe not even for Tony's, little more than a breath. "Not you. Not _now…_ "

The man coming towards them is taller than Loki and might mass more than both of them put together, with the assertive presence of a football player who's used to being the first one to tackle his opponent and being able to stand up and shake off the resulting dogpile without noticing. He walks with a swagger in his hips but his shoulders set for a fight, and he's staring at Loki like he's sizing him up as a target, not looking left or right.

Tony's first reaction is disbelief – what the hell is going on here? It's not like they've wandered off into the _real_ Las Vegas, the part that plugs its fingers in its ears and gets on with business while the tourists laugh it up like fuzzballs, or the part that remembers it used to be a mob town. They can't be more than ten meters from the neon-lit, well-patrolled Strip, and there are at least a dozen other people on this street alone, which is practically deserted as Las Vegas goes, but still, plenty of witnesses.

Except he must have been more distracted by the heat and electricity sparking through his veins than he thought, because the everyday bystanders – for Las Vegas – that he barely noticed seem to have been replaced by people consistently cast in the same mold as Flat Top here, although none of them are quite the haircut disaster that Big Guy #1 is, whose hair looks like a lawn after that guy from _Caddyshack_ went to town with the dynamite.

"Okay, I don't like this," Tony mutters. "You getting the feeling we're about to be mugged? 'Cause I'm getting a mugged type of vibe off this lot."

"Tony," says Loki, his voice cold, "stay out of this."

Surprised, Tony looks up and finds that while he was staring around, half his field of vision of Flat Top has been replaced by Loki's midnight-green-clad shoulders. Not that that's a _huge_ loss, in fact that seems like a net benefit if he's going to be businesslike about this, but the sheer weirdness crowds it out as determinedly as Big Guys #2-13, who are hemming them in more than just a bit.

"What's going on?"

"Poor timing, mainly. They're looking for me."

"You know these guys?"

 _Not boring,_ but Tony could have taken a bit less worry with his entertainment this time. Team Flat Top has seen way too many gangster B-movies, although no one has pulled out a Gatling gun and at least they're not in cheap suits. Still, being surrounded by threatening-looking guys in ratty T-shirts is even less fun, even with the added weirdness that Team Flat Top seems to be made up of sets of identical twins.

Okay, Las Vegas likes its themes, but that's really going the extra mile.

"I might have mouthed off to someone with no sense of humor at some point."

"Loki, I am shocked. Absolutely shocked. I never would have guessed it of you."

"Busy, Tony." But he can hear the smile. _Attaboy_ , Tony thinks but does not say, because he's pretty sure that, Team Flat Top or not, he might not survive that.

Speaking of surviving things, there's a cell phone in his pocket with a couple of nice, friendly numbers waiting to be pressed…

"No," Loki says the _moment_ Tony reaches for his phone, although how the man knew given that all his attention seems to be on Caddyshack, marching towards them, Tony can't say. "It's fine. Let me handle this."

" _There_ you are," Caddyshack says smugly, coming to a stop close enough to threaten, but out of easy reach. "You disappeared, Silvertongue, and there are so many people who want you back."

"I'm flattered." Loki's voice drips with disdain. "Perhaps you could form into an orderly line. Or there might be a tournament."

Caddyshack scratches his head as if deep in thought even as his sneer creases his face into something not even Photoshop could save. "Hey, there's an idea. How about a hunt? People would come from _worlds_ away. And I know just where to find a fox."

Ignoring him deliberately, Loki scans Big Guys #2-13 and sighs as if disappointed by their lack of style, grace, finesse, or originality. "And you're bothering to blend in. Almost. There are other faces they could have used, you realize?"

Caddyshack laughs – at least, that's what Tony thinks that sound is supposed to be. It sounds more like rocks in a concrete mixer. "Who cares? Maybe we'll keep you around long enough for you to make us some better ones. If you last that long. Dangerous game, that is, letting you work your tricks. Or talk. Or move. Or breathe."

Okay, and _that's_ a threat, and Tony's way over this conversation even though he's being kept out of it. But when he takes a breath to jump in, Loki actually _steps on his foot_ for a split but convincing second.

Biting his tongue to keep from yelping unmanfully, Tony glares at his friend. Since Loki won't meet his eyes, he settles for aiming his curses at that emerald stud earring; it's almost as green so it'll do.

This is _madness,_ without even the advantage of being Sparta _._ Loki can't honestly expect him to stay quiet and just let these thugs threaten him over some old grudge, can he?

"Run, Silvertongue," Caddyshack snarls, and one of the Flat Top Gang comes up behind his boss, closing in the half-circle hemming the two of them in. Part of Tony wants to retreat, put his back to the wall to stop his spine tingling, but when he reaches out to tug on the back of Loki's jacket his friend shrugs him off without even looking around, which at least spares his toes. "Should have kept your clever hands to yourself. Maybe then you might have stayed in your daddy's good graces."

Tony is standing a breath behind him, but even he only _barely_ notices Loki flinch, a twitch of fingers, shoulders tightening just a hair, that traitor muscle along his jaw tugging taunt, the tiny flaws in this gambling town's most unrevealing poker-ready façade.

"Oh," Caddyshack tries to coo in that gravel voice, like a second-rate Bond villain watching the hero cut the wrong wire. "You didn't really think he was still keeping an eye out for you? After the mess you made? You really think _anyone_ will care if we drag you out of this tawdry bolt-hole of yours and hold you still long enough for your tricks and your enemies to catch up to you?"

Loki doesn't move, doesn't answer, doesn't say anything to clarify what the hell Caddyshack is talking about.

"No clever remarks, foxy boy? Truth smelted down your tongue?" The man smirks and snaps his fingers, gesturing to his men, who come to attention, hands shifting in their pockets. One of them even licks his lips.

Ew.

"Go on, little lost trickster. Run, if you've still got the nerve. Give us something to chase."

The magician's reply is cool and calm and just that tiny bit mocking, as if Caddyshack had never hit anything like a sore point, and the tiny fraction of Tony's brain that isn't whirling in shock and disbelief and nervousness bleeding – not hah – into fear remembers Loki's hand on his shoulder or catching his elbow to pull him away and to another exhibit whenever Howard's photographed eyes grew too judgmental and disappointed, even through fifty years and Technicolor matte finish.

"Who, me?" Loki says, spreading his hands wide. "Go away and bother someone else. I'm all harmless and human and inoffensive these days."

The guy in the shadows behind Caddyshack has seen _way_ too many late-night movies, because he actually laughs "Heh heh heh," before adding, "And helpless –"

There's a noise like _sssst-chunk!_ and Turner Classic Movies stops talking.

And then he stops being vertical, and as he keels over backwards Tony sees something dark and straight and _wrong_ sticking out of one eye socket.

His brain catches up with the last few bits of data and he remembers _movement_ close enough to touch and a flash of light off metal so fleeting he'd dismissed it as imaginary.

"I also lie a hell of a lot," Loki says calmly.

Flat Top heads swivel back from the guy on the floor with a knife through his eye socket – which Tony will have to deal with in a second – and join Tony in the understandable pastime of staring instead at Loki.

…who has a long, lethal-looking blade in his left hand, which Tony could have sworn was empty a moment ago, held just too low for anyone to watch the blade and his eyes at the same time. Who has what must be a second throwing knife in his right, crossed over his body and ready to snap out at the next damn fool who gets anywhere near him – or Tony, the engineer realizes, because Loki is between him and most of the Flat Top Gang, and that can't be a coincidence. Who's keeping all eyes on him.

…who's poised, light on his feet and all but _humming_ with tension like a fighter jet barreling down the runway, ready to leap, ready to fight.

…whose eyes are all but _glowing_ in the reflected light from the neon streets, Real Smile like a gash cut through a mask to the predator beneath, as if he's glorying in it.

…who's terrifying.

…who's _beautiful._

Far too late to make any difference, Tony remembers that this is a man who chafes at tigers in cages.

 _They have us surrounded,_ Tony quips to himself, in lieu of thought. _The poor bastards._

"Tony," and how Loki can keep his voice that calm, with a blade almost as sharp as that Cheshire-cat grin trapping the light and everyone's attention in a way that should go _ting_ , "why don't you go get us some drinks, and I'll catch up with you."

"What the –"

"Now, if you please."

"Where –"

"Oh, I'll find you. Don't I always?"

Ninety-three semi-coherent questions and at least one outright scream are beating at Tony's teeth like the Colorado caught behind the Hoover Dam, and all he's coming out with are monosyllables.

"But you –" he says.

Loki turns to him, just slightly, keeping the Flat Top Gang – retreating, just a step, clearly thinking twice about a fight they might not have gambled on, while Caddyshack does his best Mount St. Helens impression – in view, and Tony fights the urge to press himself into the brickwork at his back.

All this time, he realizes, playing and teasing and idling around, entertaining himself with disappearing acts and magic tricks and Tony's attempts at recruiting him or flirting with him, and Loki has been keeping _this_ locked up inside him. The smirk on his face, even the bitten-back edge of it, is _diabolical_ , and the man – the body – on the ground is a weight on the world.

Who the _hell_ is he?

"I'm working," Loki says, eyes cold. "You're in my way. _Go._ "

Maybe a better person would have seen another option. Maybe someone with half a gram of sense would have called the police long ago. Maybe some square-jawed blond hero would have stuck by his friend and shamed them all into using their words and settling whatever this is without further backstreet violence.

Tony goes.

Worse still, they let him.

* * *

He's not sure what bar this is or what casino it's in or even if it's in a casino at all. It might be one of those hole-in-the-wall places that hang on in between the big names like that tiny running bird among the elephants in _The Lion King_. He'd gotten in a cab, and he'd told the driver to let him out anywhere on the Strip, and he'd shoved some money at the guy, and he'd walked through the first door he'd seen, and he'd gone straight for the barstool in the corner where he could put his back to the wall, and he'd flipped the first credit card that came to hand at the bartender, and he'd told her to pour whatever was good.

Tony has no idea what he's doing, or what he should be doing, or what's going on, or what just happened.

It's not that Loki has something in his past he's clearly not telling Tony about, because Tony knew that. He knew that all along. What else has he been trying to find out – unsuccessfully – for the past two and a half years?

It's not even that his friend is in some kind of trouble, or is hiding from that trouble, or that he doesn't want to be found – which explains a lot, the unwillingness to sign on with Tony, to put himself in an environment he couldn't control; the name and the habit of getting rid of phones and the spontaneous running off to another continent; the lack of any other identity or history or, hell, home address.

It's the sound of that throwing knife hissing through the air, and the way that man had folded like a puppet, and that blade that looked like it had been stolen off the set of _Lord of the Rings_ steady in the magician's hand.

It's that Tony had felt the bite of the violence just waiting to happen snap through Loki like an electric charge, and that he suspects that only then had Loki truly come to life.

And if he's being totally honest with himself – something Tony doesn't recommend – it's that a secret part of him had _liked_ it. Just as he'd stared into that blaze of dragonfire. Just as he'd walked across an abyss in the darkness on a dare.

Just as he'd seen probability take a beating.

Just as he'd woken up to a stranger in his locked room – with a knife – and trembled not from fear but from desire.

Tony's a goddamn adrenaline junkie, and he's known for a good long while now that he's found himself a _hell_ of a fix, pure enough to overdose on from one too-strong hit and sweet enough to spoil him for anything else.

Tony needs another drink.

And a new brain.

And a new body, because this one is still thrumming with the awareness of the predator at his side.

Possibly because Loki's appeared at the barstool beside him, head bowed and shoulders slumped. But Tony recognizes that, and he knows it's as likely to be a pose as real, the magician making himself small and harmless and disarming even as he carefully nudges a shot glass of something liquid and golden and harsh his way, the very picture of a considerate, reassuring friend.

Drinking it would be really, really easy, and then there would be another one, and he could bleach everything he's just seen and thought from his memory. He could wake up _somewhere_ tomorrow – Pepper will rescue him; she'll call Happy or Rhodey and have them come bail him out – and curse at the headache and not at what's twisting beneath his ribs.

To hell with that.

Tony grabs the magician by the front of his shirt and reels him in, Loki's eyes going wide, wide, as the contents of the shot glass spill ignored across the bar.

"For once in your goddamn life," he snarls, "you are going to give me a straight answer. Got me?"

He can feel Loki breathing, hear it as the breath stutters in his chest and feel it against his knuckles where they're twisted against his throat, racing in ragged harmony with Tony's own pulse and shuddering down his arm to bite into his heart and lungs and send them skipping alongside. Loki's close enough to be kissed, or to snap at him like a tiger, or for Tony to spit in his face and turn his back and leave him to his mystery and his madness, and if Tony can't see his reflection in the other man's eyes he can at least see his pupils dilate, blacking out that striking green.

He stomps on the impulse to get caught up in watching that – _god_ , he wants to do that, wants to find out how many ways he can possibly be the cause of that.

"What. The hell. Just happened?" Tony grits out. The image of that man collapsing to the ground replays behind his own eyes _again_ , and he lowers his voice to a hiss. "That guy went _down_. Did you just kill someone? Dammit, Loki – is the mob after you or something? What the hell was that about?"

"Those are separate questions," says Loki, softly, patiently. He lifts one hand and wraps it around Tony's, still clenched at his throat, but not to force him away. Instead he cradles Tony's hand there, thumb sweeping over the skin in an absentminded gesture that very nearly startles Tony out of his resolve altogether.

No, he refuses to be that easy.

"Tony, calm down. It's all right, I assure you. What happened is complicated, and goes back a long way, and I'll handle it." His voice is low and soft, reassuring, every inch of him sincere, and Tony doesn't trust it for an _instant._

But he doesn't pull his hand away, doesn't sit back and get out of the magician's face. Instead he stares, rapt, looking for the tiny, tiny tells and wondering if he really wants to find them.

"They're gone, all of them. What you think you saw – it's fine. Go and look, and you won't find a body, because there isn't one to find."

Tony blinks, head full of vampires slain and dusted. "What?"

"People see what I want them to, remember? Don't worry about it, Tony. I know who they were, and none of this is a surprise to me. They've been looking for a fight – they've been looking for me – and no one else need be involved, I swear it, not even you." And oh, he wants to believe that smile, amused and mischievous and with a tinge of longing for approval. "I knew they were coming. I knew they wouldn't come after me in the light, that I'd have the shadows to work with. So, look –"

Loki releases his hand – maybe Tony's imagining the reluctance – and leans back; Tony's long since lost his death grip on the shirt, and lets him go. He watches as Loki pulls something from one of his jacket pockets: something small and no larger than a coaster and that Tony has _almost_ seen before, something that disappears in the palm of his hand as he closes his fingers around it.

This time he's close enough to see those fingers play over the hidden surface in tiny signals as Loki angles whatever it is towards the open space between the bar and the empty booths, and a moment later a heavy-set, shadowy figure appears. Three-dimensional. Coherent.

A moment ago, not there.

"That's –"

"Not real."

And the hologram – perfect, indistinguishable, indistinct only because it had been dark and how many details did it need? – takes a few steps towards them before stopping. Its head snaps back, knife hilt appearing in its eye socket, and it crumbles.

"See?" Loki taps at the control hidden in his palm, and the image fuzzes out and disappears as the magician pockets his toy again.

Tony's urge to get his hands on that device rears its head, feeble and thunderstruck and gun-shy now, but reviving.

It's outvoted by his matching urge to get his hands on its owner, one way or another.

He kind of wishes he hadn't knocked over that drink.

"And you were just carrying that around in your pocket?" Tony blurts out, finally.

One corner of Loki's mouth twitches. "Oh, like you never carry strange things around in your pockets."

There's a box of toothpicks within reach. Tony picks – hah – one up and points it at him. "Don't try to make me laugh, Loki. Not now."

Loki glances away, peeks back at Tony through his eyelashes, which is both the closest thing Tony's going to get to an apology – Loki's never apologized to him for anything, and Tony's not even sure he knows how – and incredibly appealing, and the Incredible Brain knows neither of those things are coincidence.

"I didn't know when they'd show up," he continues, mildly enough, "but I suspected they'd be around."

"And _they_ are?" Tony can't help but ask.

But Loki's shaking his head _no_ by the second word. "Better if you don't know, and I doubt I could explain. There are things I _won't_ tell you, Tony. If I'd known they were going to come after me tonight, I wouldn't have let you get involved. It's not your problem." The hand resting on the bar – safely away from the spilled alcohol – lifts as if he means to touch, but he draws it back and those long fingers start toying with the edge of the puddle instead, Loki suddenly raptly interested in it. "Poor timing, as I said," he adds softly.

Oh, great and various gods he doesn't believe in. Tony wants to believe this.

Maybe not all of it is true. But one thing's for sure.

Loki's in trouble.

And Tony's a self-centered, self-obsessed narcissist who _knows_ he's just as awesome as he thinks he is, but almost against his will, that fact matters.

"Hey," Tony blurts. "No, it's okay, I – hell, Loki, you _scared_ me. I was scared _for_ you. Don't tell anyone, okay?"

Loki glances back up at him, a bit sideways, a bit wry, and his smile twists to match.

"You're my friend, right? Can I help, or something?" He's not good at being a friend, but through the atrophy, that feels like the right thing to say.

"Oh, I doubt it," says Loki, looking away. "I'll deal with them the next time they come looking for trouble."

 _How –_ Tony very nearly says.

What he says instead is, "Okay, so the sacrificial minion was one of your holograms, which now that I think about it clearly is fantastic, but I have to ask, and let me point out that you still haven't given me a straight answer about what's going on here, so you owe me one –"

He runs out of sentence at the sight of Loki's amused smirk, and decides to just get to the point.

Hah.

"…do you really have a knife?"

The smirk doesn't go away. "I'm a magician," Loki says, sarcasm without the bite that normally accompanies it. "I'm obliged to have something up my sleeve. I think there's a rule."

Tony can't help but reach out; because he's a scientist, and he needs empirical evidence, that's why.

Loki intercepts his hand mid-stretch and guides it to his own left wrist. "I'm right-handed," he says.

And there is indeed something more than fabric and skin and flesh and bone beneath his touch, and when Tony slips his fingers beneath Loki's sleeve – the magician twitches, but lets him – he finds the hilt of what must be a tiny knife.

Except, he's been watching Loki a lot more closely than that.

"Bullshit," Tony says firmly, and grabs his other wrist before he can draw away. Sleight of hand is misdirection is the heart of magic.

This time he doesn't hesitate to pull his friend's sleeve back, baring deliciously cream-pale skin and the traces of veins flowing beneath, along with a matching wrist strap and knife hilt.

The magician _laughs,_ and tugs one hand free, and has the nerve to pat Tony's face approvingly, fingers brushing over the goatee. "I _like_ you," he says, grinning.

Oh, and that's _parsecs_ better, and now Tony's on level ground again. "You have two knives. At least two knives, come to think of it."

"Yes."

"I may regret asking this, but exactly how many…"

Loki makes a sound like _hmph_ , and dabbles two fingers in the drying puddle of booze, and unselfconsciously tastes what's left of it off his fingertips. "Strip me naked, why don't you?" he complains.

…it's probably a complaint, but Tony's entire operating system has just gone _urk_ and gotten stuck right there and decided to wallow for a while.

"Let's see," Loki goes on, paying no attention to the frozen look on his companion's face. "Always these two –" He turns his freed wrists upwards. "I'm not fond of your cowboy legends, but I do keep knives in my boots, and I've got a switchblade in a pocket somewhere."

Tony's making progress on getting his brain restarted when Loki adds, "Oh," and leans in close enough to kiss him, and rests a hand on the small of Tony's back. "And one here."

"That's a lot," he manages. It's a small complete sentence, but that progress has just been set back a few notches by the terrible-wonderful sparks frying the nerves at the base of his spine and points adjacent. "Why on earth…"

The magician shrugs. "What did you learn when you were small and bored? I'd rather talk my way out of trouble than fight, but…"

He trails off, and Tony kicks the Incredible Brain into gear to come to a breathtakingly obvious conclusion. "I don't know _anything_ about you, do I?"

For that, he gets not the Real Smile, but something almost – no, he's going to commit to this description – fond. "I haven't lied to you," Loki says, everything about him radiating sincerity, and Tony wants to believe.

"But there are things I choose not to tell. Don't you have things in your past you'd rather not talk about?"

Tony doesn't let Loki distract him…any more than he already has.

"Can I trust you?" he asks, once more.

The magician sighs. "Yes, Tony. I didn't let them hurt you, did I?" What that gesture was meant to be, Tony doesn't know and he doubts Loki does either. "I know I frustrate you. I play. But that's who I am. And you play _along –_ you play _with_ me –"

 _You know I'm crazy about you, right?_ Tony wasn't going to say.

Instead, he says, "So someone's out to get you. Terrific. You got any more surprises like that?"

"Not tonight." Loki props his chin on one hand. "And not tomorrow, either," he adds. "I should go."

Tony's just registered surprise that he's bothering to say anything – usually Loki just vanishes – when he goes on and everything's wrong again.

"I do enjoy your company, and so I've stayed in one place too long. That those _oafs_ could track me down – I should vanish, for a time."

And really, Tony knows, as he opens his mouth, they were headed here all along.

"Or," he says, "you could come back to my place for a while."

* * *

 _To be continued._


	5. Indecent Proposal

ON WITH THE SHOW!

 **Chapter Five: Indecent Proposal**

 _fift-_

The very first words out of Tony's mouth the next morning are, "JARVIS, tell me he's still here."

He's wanted and wanted and wanted to bring Loki home and get the maddening, baffling man onto Tony's own turf for a change, but he hadn't anticipated that they'd be running from some threat that Loki still won't explain or even name for him; _see also: maddening_. Tony had felt oddly like the wheelman in some movie heist, flashing his pocket laser pointer at shadows and passersby alike as he tried to remember where he'd left today's car in the first place. He'd been kind of-sort of wishing he'd brought Happy with him to call for this time before he'd remembered that Happy is _another_ person he's kind of-sort of been keeping Loki a secret from, except for a few offhand comments that he's got a friend in Vegas he's been hanging out with.

Something else that needs resolving. Rhodey hasn't met him either, and Tony can't waitto _finally_ get (almost) all his favorite people into this increasingly loopy loop.

For a horrible moment, he'd realized that if he didn't know where the car was, how the hell was Loki supposed to know? The magician had flat-out refused to let Tony come with him to pack a few things from wherever it is he lives. He'd had no other choice but to trust to Loki's bizarre ability to track him down every time.

His watch was a liar. Or broken. He's going to have to replace it. There are others. It had said only a few minutes had elapsed before his friend had shown up, completely unruffled given that _he's_ the one being chased after by – Tony still doesn't know who, mob hitmen? – and with a small string bag slung over one shoulder.

"That's it?" Tony had said, mouth moving in lieu of Incredible Brain involvement as his friend tossed the bag into the back of the car and got in beside him, this time without eyeballing the Maserati skeptically.

"It's bigger on the inside," Loki had replied, straight-faced.

Tony actually hadn't doubted that. He's seen too many women pull everything but a grenade launcher out of clutch purses the size of their left shoe _not_ to believe that some things are bigger on the inside.

He'd let that stand just long enough for Tony to push the button to winch the convertible's top back up, but as he slammed the car into motion, making it roar like the jet it longs to be, Loki had relented. "I keep most of what I really need in my head, and if _anyone_ can find where I keep the rest, I'm in far too much trouble to worry about that."

"I always wanted to see your workshop. Guess I'm not getting a tour anytime soon?"

"Oh, I don't know. Maybe one day."

If Tony had thought that having his friend stuck in a confined and moving space with him would force Loki to answer questions, given that it's very hard to disappear out of a moving car, he'd been wrong.

He hadn't been that surprised.

That had been last night, arriving back in Malibu in the small hours of the morning.

Hello, rest of the morning.

" _Your guest is still here,"_ JARVIS assures him now. _"I have given him access to all the non-secure areas of the house, and Ms. Potts has been informed of his presence here. She asked me to relay a message to you when you awoke."_

"Joy." Pepper is heroically tolerant of the various pneumatic women who come and go a night at a time. Either she understands that they're just fun, and that everyone involved knows this – and if they don't, that's not Tony's problem – or she's numb to it by now. Tony can only imagine Pepper's reaction to her boss bringing home his enigmatic, completely devoid of security clearance, head-turning, _male_ Vegas magician.

There are guest bedrooms downstairs, usually for partygoers who have had too much to drink when all the taxis in the area are ferrying home everyone else, and Loki's been welcome to one of those for years in between Tony dragging him around the house showing off all his own clever toys, but he's a scandal waiting to happen.

Tough shit.

"Does it contain the word 'moron' at any point?" Tony asks.

" _The most recent draft does not, sir."_

"Oh, there are drafts. Double joy. Let's hear it."

" _Message runs as follows –"_ and JARVIS' voice transitions into Pepper's, words bitten off like she's gritting her teeth. _"Tony, a little warning would have been nice. At least no one seems to have seen you bring him here. Any information on how long I'm going to have to keep this quiet would be useful."_

"Tell her she's the best, and to buy herself something nice from me as a reward for being the best, and to ask Loki – he's the expert at secrets here," Tony says, watching the weather forecast on the wraparound window screen. Outside it's that weird combination of bright and overcast, a thin layer of cloud cover diffusing the sunlight into a steady glow, and the ocean at the base of the cliff is calm. The weather services and JARVIS think it'll burn off by noon, but this is spring on the California coast, so who the hell knows. "I don't know what he's going to do from one minute to the next, much less in the next few days." God, that man's fun. "And if he can keep himself a ghost in a show business town for years, he's got some press-dodging tricks to teach me. Maybe the next time Pepper schedules interviews for me I didn't know about."

" _Shall I tell her that last, sir?"_

"Hell no. Just the first sentence, JARVIS."

" _Certainly, sir. On that topic, might I add that, having at last gotten images of your guest from the house cameras, I have been scanning the photographic and biometric databases I legally have access to?"_

"Sorry, JARV. The last time I tried to take a picture for you, he made my camera vanish. And my phone, while he was at it. You do not want to know what he dared me to do before he'd give them back. What have you got?"

JARVIS has never been off the find-out-who-Loki-is-behind-his-back search, but Tony had stopped asking for regular updates months ago. He'd still been curious, but the AI hadn't been getting anywhere, and the past had seemed less and less important next to the fun they were having together in the present.

It seems a lot more important now.

" _Little more than I had before,"_ the AI admits. _"A small number of images in the backgrounds of amateur photographs, mostly by tourists, that have been posted on the Internet. None of them predate this decade. In terms of formal identification, nothing, in the United States or abroad even with the aid of facial recognition and morphing software. The military archives might be my next step, but –"_

Tony frees up a hand from the complex process of putting on slob clothes, as Rhodey calls them, to wave a negative. "No, no, no, if we hack the military over this, Rhodey will spit fire. At whatever's left of me after Pepper grills me to charcoal. And someone will blab, and then I'll never hear the end of it. Possibly from Congress, and let's not do that again."

He doesn't see anything wrong with using the mighty power of JARVIS to pry into his friend's past life – or at least, he wouldn't see anything wrong if he was getting anywhere, and that he _isn't_ is all the more tantalizing. Loki has waved a pretty mystery in front of him, and Tony is going to do whatever it takes to solve it, because he's Tony Stark and nothing is beyond his Incredible Brain and the Incredible JARVIS, who after all is an offshoot of the Incredible Brain, only with manners.

" _Then I remain at a loss."_

"You and me both, buddy. Where is – no, wait, don't tell me. I'll find him the hard way."

It proves not all that hard. "Non-secure areas" narrows it down a lot. Not that Tony doubts Loki's ability to break into his workshop, but JARVIS would have noticed and said something. And he doesn't really expect to find his haughty magician sprawled out on the couch watching morning television.

Although replace "morning television" with "some fantastic movie" and put Tony on that couch with him, maybe with the lights way down low, and it's a much better mental image.

After all, Loki all but told him where he'd be.

If there are any snoopy reporters with long-distance lenses today, hiding along the bluff the house is built on and having not learned anything from what happened to their predecessors – scary laser beams may have been involved, and don't talk to Tony about how long it took to make those look like the movies, and _then_ Pepper brought Legal down on their heads – then they're getting a damn good view off the rooftop balcony, which is, after all, the highest place in the house.

There's a railing, of sorts, mostly to keep drunk partygoers – look, Tony throws a lot of parties – from going diving unexpectedly, and when Tony opens the door to the roof he stops and takes a moment just to look.

So he's an acquisitive jackass. So having his friend _here_ has lit a possessive, happy little flame in his gut, and it's not just that anyone _that_ striking needs to be kept and framed alongside the indoor waterfall and the antique cars.

Tony's never been good at sharing his space for very long, and maybe it'll wear on him, but for now it's just goodto have his strangest friend here at _last_.

"You really do like heights, don't you?" Tony greets him – _good morning_ is for ordinary people.

Loki glances over his shoulder for just a second, smiles acknowledgement and maybe a bit of invitation, and goes back to staring out at the Pacific raptly.

"You didn't tell me you lived on the ocean," he says when Tony takes up that invitation and joins him at the railing. It's almost a rebuke, like knowing it would have gotten him here sooner, in which case _hell_ , why didn't Loki say something earlier?

"Very much not a desert."

For a long few seconds Tony thinks his comment has gone unheard, and when Loki speaks again it does seem likely.

"I could see the ocean from my rooms," he says, almost reluctantly, and clams up.

That sounds…real.

Another clue locks into place in Tony's mental jigsaw puzzle, because Loki has been offering him hints, scattered about amid the jokes about being from space, waiting for him to be smart enough to put them together.

He thought he had an outline, but after last night…well, that put a new light on things.

Loki's from somewhere near an ocean, and he had multiple rooms he considered his own, and all that lines up with the accent and that he's good with horses and the aristocratic manners when he bothers to use them to have long ago led Tony to the conclusion that he's from some sort of upper-class fairly well-off English family.

The mafia hitmen don't add up; Tony's working on that, although if Loki's from some sort of upper-class well-off English _crime_ family then that would be _really_ cool and explain a lot.

That it's all in past tense adds up and puts a ring around the total.

"You miss your home," Tony says.

The statement clangs to the ground like one of those archaic Excalibur knights thrown from his horse, flailing and deafening and painful, helpless against the gravity of it all, and Tony wishes at once that he could take it back.

Loki _will not_ look at him, but his jaw tightens, that and what the sea wind is doing to his hair the only signs of life assuring Tony that he's not suddenly talking to a steel-cast statue.

They have been playing, they have been flirting; before last night and this morning everything they've done together has been in fun.

Tony's determinedly not an insight sort of person. Give him the surface and the moment and the next best and brightest and most outrageous thing; that's what drew him to Loki in the first place, after all.

But now he has said something true.

They should have stayed in Vegas, Tony regrets, even though _what happens in_ is a terrible cliché and that moments ago he'd been hugging Loki's presence here to him like a new toy. Nothing's real there. Nothing has to be.

Las Vegas was safe, until the knives came out.

Well, hell. He's already crashed this car, so he might as well set it on fire.

"Why can't you go back?" he asks. Something in him whispers _exile_ , like Napoleon banished to Elba, to Saint Helena, finding his way back again and again. It's a romantic image, the exile gazing across the sea towards his home – except it's _not,_ not close to. Not when he's looking at it. Not when he can see Loki staring at the ocean like it's something needful and unreachable.

Loki's hands have tightened on the railing, and he visibly forces himself to release it, folding his fingers in and out as if counting them, as if choosing his words a syllable at a time.

 _Please,_ Tony thinks but does not say. _Please, I want you to trust me, with who you are, and the things you can do that I sit around and fantasize about, and the things I think you could do to_ me _and I could do to you, and who – and what – you're running from._

 _Because hell, I think you're the razor's edge I've been running along all my life, because you scare the hell out of me sometimes but you take my breath away always and I could suffocate on that, gladly._

 _But you have to trust me._

The magician picks his words like they're live grenades, when he speaks. "My father," he says, and Tony _knows_ that toxic blend of longing and rage and bitterness and resignation like the hum of his favorite power drill in his hands, "is angry with me."

He laughs, if that's what that sound can be called. "More so than usual, that is to say. I…interfered in something I should not have, and was caught doing so through no fault of my own, and so things that were left incomplete ended up _broken_ , and the blame for it laid across my shoulders when if I had been left to –"

Loki cuts himself off with a sharp, abortive gesture, leaving Tony little the wiser, but he understands the gist of it. Probably whatever Loki's family does isn't exactly legal, based on the nasty characters coming after him, and the fact that Loki's true identity is so hidden that even JARVIS can't find him, and that the magician has been _punished_ for screwing it up. That he's been sent away and told not to come home to some place with an ocean and horses, somewhere that teaches its sons how to throw knives and disappear into crowds like ghosts when they're not designing magic tricks that have everyone looking the wrong way the whole time.

Reluctantly, he goes on, "I'd thought that… Yes, Tony, I miss my home. I miss the world I understood, where I belonged. I even miss my brother, for all he drives me mad. He takes after our father in far too many ways, but he is my _brother_. I had thought that my father's disappointment was the worst he could do to me, but this –"

When he stops this time, he does so with an air of biting back his words before he can say too much, that he is _done_ with this topic, shoulders drawn in and the little that Tony can see of his expression veiled behind black waves; no wonder he keeps his hair so long.

"I didn't even know you had a brother," is the only thing Tony can think of to say, because otherwise he's going to say something about fathers being the _worst_ when all you want is for them to notice you and they only acknowledge your existence to brush you aside, and he doesn't want to talk about his father any more than Loki wants to talk about his.

There's a screaming pit down there that Tony just doesn't want to ever get into.

…even if his friend is down there, reaching out for a handhold?

"We are not at all alike," the magician grumbles.

"Older, or…"

"I'm the younger one. And the smarter. He's…" Loki waves a hand in the air, which is great, because it's no longer a fist. "You have these dogs…what are they called…golden retrievers. Big, friendly, floppy, likeable. Blond. Jumping into everything, paws and tail waving. Not that bright."

The mood needs breaking like one of those chocolate orange things, so Tony doesn't feel at all guilty about chuckling.

A bit of a smirk makes it to Loki's face, still half-hidden, but it's _there_. "That's my brother, to the life."

"Yeah, I can see you getting frustrated with that." Tony's leaning on the railing alongside his friend, mimicking his body language, staring at the Pacific with him as a cover story. In not-lying-to-himself-because-why-is-he-even-bothering-anymore-land, he's watching Loki as much as he can get away with. Again.

"Look," he says tentatively, "I'm not good at these things. Anything I can't fix with a wrench and a screwdriver and a couple million dollars of R&D…rocket science is _easy_ but people don't come with operating manuals. Kind of wish they did, you know? Would make figuring _you_ out so much easier, for one thing."

He doesn't hesitate to nudge his shoulder against Loki's. The man doesn't even move, so Tony stays there. "But if I can do anything…"

He almost loses his footing when the magician shifts away and turns about, putting his back to the ocean and meeting Tony's eyes directly, and not for the first time Tony kind of wishes that this striking man was a pretty girl. Although he's not complaining about the man. Lovely is lovely. But at least then he'd _know._ Then he'd be _sure_ that he could close the last few inches and push her back into the railing and kiss her over the ocean and the horizon, could see those green eyes dilate to black behind a gaze that's _maybe almost_ a come-on, could bury one hand in long hair and pull her in to be devoured and devastated in all the best ways while the other hand got to work finding out just what else is hidden beneath that loose-cut shirt being blown askew over one shoulder and baring intriguing contours of muscle and skin and bone, and it would be just that crucial little bit of extra spice that she'd probably _still_ be taller than him, strong enough to pin him down and _take,_ and mad enough that he'd like it and come panting back for more.

 _Fuck._

He's lost.

Magicians read people, don't they? Tony's thoughts – stuttering and fervid as they are – must be written across his face, but still Loki doesn't hesitate to lay one sea-wind-cool hand against his cheek and smile at him.

"Perhaps one day," he says, "you will."

* * *

Tony throws a lot of parties, but he's not accustomed to guests who come and stay. Anyone he brings home for the night had better be gone long before lunchtime; he's got better things to do than make awkward conversation and try to remember their names and conduct even more awkward tours of the house, and he certainly never lets any of them into _his_ space downstairs.

He likes people to come and stare and enjoy themselves and appreciate him, but he gets bored of them quickly enough. Once the champagne has run out and the harder stuff has been dug up and drunk off and the DJ has gone home with an overtime bonus, often all he wants is to bury himself in his combination workshop-garage-lab and get his hands dirty. He'll bounce from _people_ to _work_ to _people_ to _work_ again, taking sips from both and mixing to taste.

He can take a break from being brilliant to be petted, but he always goes back to work and forgets that any of the party poodles were ever there.

And yet –

"Stay a while," he says, looking up at the sound of the door and closing the lid on the aerodynamics simulation running on his laptop without hesitation.

Not _hello,_ not _is everything okay,_ not _did you get everything sorted out,_ not _so what are your plans_.

Just a plea barely couched as a request.

 _Stay._

Loki's just returned from the headland beyond the house, where he's been talking on his phone all afternoon, indifferent to the sea breeze or the rough terrain or the idea – which Tony had put out there, and Loki had dismissed with a wave of one hand – that the Flat Top Gang might have tracked him here and set themselves up with sniper rifles.

After all, it's not exactly a secret who Loki's been hanging out with lately, not after Tony did everything but put up flyers all over Vegas with "have you seen this man?" and a phone number and an offer of a reward like he'd misplaced at least a tiger- _striped_ cat, if not an actual tiger. Not after Tony's spent two years trawling through casinos and landmarks with his magician at his side, both of them _very_ recognizable at a glance.

It's a little too late to wonder why the paparazzi haven't noticed by now, when they're usually so keen to pant around his heels waiting for him to do something scandal-worthy or outrageous, so Tony doesn't bother asking.

"This must be another one of my secrets, Tony," Loki had said, amused. "You _do_ pry, and I won't have you mixed up in this any more than you already are. I came by that epithet honestly, if that's the word, and I still prefer to talk my way out of trouble, if I can."

Oh, Tony wants to hear every bit of that story, because _Silvertongue_ slips onto Loki like silk and settles there like a purr.

"Can _I_ call you –"

"My name _and no other,_ Tony."

That had indeed been the deal. Damn.

The deal needs renegotiating. Tony has some ideas about incentives.

Loki had insisted on keeping his secrets, figuring out JARVIS' effective listening range with remarkable accuracy and staying away from the various surveillance monitors and perimeter cameras. The only people who really know how safe the Malibu house is live here, visit on a regular basis, or designed the system, and most of the people in the third category are in the previous two.

But he'd at least condescended to stay mostly within sight of the house.

Tony knows this, because he'd been unable to focus on the stack of paperwork that Pepper had handed him – "Since you'll be busy," she'd said dryly – and had taken several "study breaks" to the windows to watch despite suspecting that Pepper was rolling her eyes when he wasn't looking. He's never actually caught Pepper doing that, but she's had plenty of opportunity to practice.

"If I finish all my homework, can I go out and play?" he'd teased back at her.

And gotten through _most_ of the stack; the rest can wait.

"Really," he says now, catching his friend's momentarily empty hand as he drops his phone into the pocket of the long midnight-green jacket he favors, the one that's cut through with black and with twining accents of gold thread like vines, and pockets that Tony likes to think are bigger on the inside. "You're welcome here, you know that?"

He's acutely aware of the mingled sensations of smooth fabric and woven leather bracelet – he's never seen Loki without it – and what he now realizes is a wrist sheath beneath his hand, and the pads of two fingers against skin, cast into sharp relief by keen eyes that fix on him and fix him there, like a needle, like a shot of sharp, burning scotch scorching down his throat to warm him all the way through.

His friend smells like ocean and something he can't place, because Tony's a metalwork and electronics guy, not a candle store. But he'd be down for further research.

"If you'll have me," Loki says, and it's almost hesitant.

A dozen replies spring to mind immediately, ranging from _If?_ to _don't mind if I do_ and ending up at _I need to take all your clothes off right now and show you how many ways_ if.

"We're friends, right?" he answers instead. "I've been trying to get you here for ages, not going to let you run off to another continent without even dragging you downstairs and showing you all my cool toys I'm working on. Oh, and the bots, what have I been telling you DUM-E stories for all this time?"

Dragging Loki anywhere is harder than it looks – he's whipcord thin but _damn_ is he strong, Tony's discovered – so he's relieved when the magician allows himself to be led off towards the stairs.

"I'm still not quite sure," Loki murmurs, almost as an aside.

"Not sure what?"

"Why."

"Why wha –" Tony stops before that can spiral, because it _will_ , and Loki will push the spiral along just to, Tony's convinced, see him flail. "Why are we friends?"

"I still can't teach you to do what I do, nor will I do so on command." It's a rebuke, but it's gentle.

"Oh, dammit, Loki, we've been over this. Forget about that." Tony _hasn't_ forgotten, he's still desperate to know how technology indistinguishable from magic works and what else he could do with it – they could do with it – someday, but there's no longer any question of paying off the inventor and running off with the invention.

He'll have _both,_ if he's careful, if he means it. And he does, he does. "I _like_ you."

"Most people don't."

"Most people are idiots. You heard that here. Now come and meet the bots already."

 _Stay, stay and be one of my people, one of the few I keep by my side because I trust them._

It's such a tempting vision even if Tony can't quite figure out how to get there. Now that he's home he knows what he's doing; he's got the advantage of solid, familiar ground and now this is his game, wooing someone who'll have to be won.

All he wants is to fold Loki into his life in a way that makes _sense_ , and then he'll have everything that, right now, he wants.

It's been dizzying, and delightfully so, finding himself orbiting someone else when everything else revolves around him. But it's time to bring this blazing, wandering comet he's found into a safer orbit. Time to push, persistently and precisely but carefully, carefully lest everything go down in flames.

* * *

No one's ever done simple sleight-of-hand coin tricks for the bots before. The silly things almost don't let him leave.

* * *

"Who the _hell_ are you?"

Rhodey's voice echoes through the lab, sharp and accusing, and Tony nearly drops a spanner on his face in surprise. He's flat on his back on a rolling frame beneath the vintage cherry-white Duesenberg – so he's a sucker – or at least what's left of it in these interim stages between taking it apart to see what needs fixing and taking it out to eat some road.

"Hey Rhodey! Where've you been, man? It's fine, it's fine –" Tony calls out as he tries to disentangle his other hand from the deep guts of the engine without burning it on the weird gizmo someone jammed in there for reasons unknown, which, as he's discovered, heats up to absurd temperatures when new owners rev the engine indoors to illustrate its awesomeness to skeptical magicians. He's got to get that thing out of there and throw it into a wall.

He's also got to get out from under all this German steel and keep his friends from starting a fight with each other. "JARVIS, way to keep me posted. Step up your game."

JARVIS doesn't dignify that with a response, unless the AI is the one suddenly encouraging DUM-E to stand squarely in his light so that now Tony really can't see how to get his hand back.

To his relief, Loki's voice is cool and calm and mildly amused. "Thank you, Tony, but I can defend myself." Unless he's moved – and Tony would have heard, it's not like he's hyper-aware of where the guy is at all times or anything – the magician is still sitting on the car's stubby little trunk playing fetch with the bots.

Butterfingers had nearly run over Tony twice – once on the way there, once on the way back – in pursuit of the stress ball Loki had stolen out of one of Tony's desk drawers for a better use as a bot toy. Somehow, miraculously, nothing has gotten broken, not even the epic box fort Tony had built a couple of weeks ago out of shipping crates that had been left unattended for more than five seconds and left up as a monument to boredom and cardboard.

Loki hadn't said anything about it during yesterday's tour of the lab, but he hadn't said anything very loudly. Between him and Pepper, now Tony's got _two_ people who can do that. Lovely. Tony had rattled off some nonsense about the engineering properties of cardboard before segueing smoothly into "And it seemed like a good idea at the time."

There is, he maintains, no better reason to do anything.

"Colonel Rhodes, I presume? You're Tony's friend."

"Yeah…" Rhodey says, and Tony will just have to imagine the skeptical, wary look on that man's face, because he's still stuck under this rustbucket car.

Okay, it's a nice car, but it's complicated enough to be the ancestor of all steampunk.

Holy shit, he needs to build himself a working steampunk car.

Actually, the Duesenberg would be a _fantastic_ steampunk car. New project!

"Wait, I know who you've gotta be." Rhodey doesn't sound any happier about that. "Tony, are you under there? This is your magician, isn't he?"

"Not _mine_ ," Tony calls, before Loki can make the same objection. "Not yet," he mutters to the Duesenberg. It doesn't answer.

Yet.

"Yes, I'm Loki. Of nowhere in particular, at the moment."

"Figured as much."

Tony finally manages to get out from under the car. DUM-E helps, catching the end of the rolling frame and pulling until Tony pushes the silly bot away. When he peers around the propped-open, overlong hood, the look on Rhodey's face is exactly what he'd expected, a mix of skepticism and resignation and caution behind a lighter version of the talking-to-strangers mask.

But he shouldn't need that here. Rhodey is Tony's oldest friend – Obie doesn't count, Obie's more of an uncle, Obie's family – and there have been so many times when he's practically lived in this house, not to mention the various other places Tony had lived in before he got this one designed and built. Rhodey has spent days on end brainstorming and strategizing and storytelling back and forth with Tony over cheap beer and takeout, both of them in socks and slob clothes, drawing increasingly immature cartoons on each other's notes and teasing each other about past indiscretions and adventures.

He can see at a glance that neither of them wants his help. Rhodey's eyes flick over and acknowledge him – crap, there's engine oil in his hair, isn't there? – and then narrow at Loki even as U rolls over to tug at Rhodey's pants leg.

"Tony mentioned he'd found you," says Rhodey.

Loki shrugs, one-handed and dismissive. "Not quite. It would be more accurate to say that I found him. I could have left him to wander the Strip in circles."

"Thanks for not doing that, by the way."

"I did consider it, Tony," Loki tosses back at him, grinning. "It was very entertaining. And yes, I know I said otherwise, at the time. But I am pleased I decided otherwise. There's oil in your hair, by the way."

"I know tha – argh! Butterfingers, gerroutofit!" The bot has dropped a towel on his head.

Rhodey doesn't laugh at him, but only because he's busy being suspicious. "I've been hearing a lot of incoherent Las Vegas stories lately. What are you doing here instead?"

Loki sighs but stays put on the end of the car. "Why do people always think I'm up to something?" he asks the world. "Tony invited me."

"The mob's after him," Tony chips in, scrubbing the oil out of his hair. Mostly.

"Wait, what?"

"Tony, they are _not._ That is not what happened."

"I'm just surprised to see Tony let anyone else into his workshop down here," Rhodey says, a bit of a challenge in his voice even as U nudges at his back, trying to push him in Tony's direction – _go say hi, why aren't you behaving the way you usually do?_ "He must really like you. Not everyone's this trusted." Giving in, he strolls over to the hood end of the car and peers into it. "Tony, do I even want to know what you're doing to this thing?"

"I think I'm going to remodel it into a steampunk car, won't that be awesome?"

"I did not want to know."

Tony claps him on the shoulder, leaving a teeny tiny handprint. Oops. "C'mon, Rhodey. Picture the awesome! It's supposed to have gears and levers and pistons and pipes everywhere and wheels on the outside _anyway_."

Movement on his other side is Loki, one hand brushing over one of the aforementioned spare tires, which the Duesenberg keeps on the side of the hood. "I'm no threat, Colonel. I don't mean any harm, and I don't intend to steal any of your secrets or his. Isn't that what you're asking? Not who I am, but what do I want?"

Rhodey's posture tightens just a tad. "I'm just saying, I don't know you, but I do know Tony. Don't give me that look, Tony, the Air Force should give me a medal for rescuing your butt all the time. And you – I just don't want to see one of his whims get him hurt."

Tony looks from one to the other delightedly – he'll get Rhodey back for that comment another time. They couldn't have struck a greater contrast if he'd arranged it himself. On his right, Rhodey's dark-skinned, his hair buzz-cut short, his posture military and correct, his presence familiar, his approach down-to-earth, his expression wary.

On his left, Loki's winter-pale, his hair long enough to pull up in a samurai ponytail, and everything Tony knows about him promises magic; he's still a mystery, and there is indeed something alien about him, a bit archaic, more than a bit haughty.

And, by contrast to Rhodey's glare, Loki seems pleased.

"Oh, but you don't know me. Shall we make peace, Colonel?" He turns his hands up – nothing to hide – and smiles. It's not the Real Smile. "Tony's still trying to pry my secrets from me, rather, for all I've refused to tell him, for all he denies he's doing so, and he can, as you say, make plenty of trouble for himself."

"You guys are ganging up on me," says Tony, rolling his eyes. "C'mon, isn't anyone on my side here?"

"I _am –_ " both Rhodey and Loki try to say at the same time, and have to break off mid-sentence to look at each other in horror.

"See?" Tony says to Butterfingers, who whirrs a reply. "That was easy. Play nice, guys."

"Oh, neatly done, Tony." The magician smirks at him, and Tony basks in the rare praise. "Clever."

Rhodey's more straightforward, which really sums it all up. "Bastard."

Loki shifts gears as smoothly as this car's going to, one day. Tony's learned how to deal with the whiplash; Rhodey, he suspects, doesn't stand a chance. "But I know you're only protecting your friend, Colonel, and he does sorely need it."

"Hey," Tony protests. They both ignore him.

Now that he thinks about it, they're not a complete contrast. It's not obvious, but he's accustomed to watching both of them, and it's there.

Rhodey's a soldier, trained and disciplined, and there's something like that about Loki, too. Violence controlled, with precision. Rhodey taught Tony to use a gun, just so he'd know, a calm voice in his ear and a steady hand on his wrist, and Loki sounded the same way on that dark street, a knife in his hand and his enemies hunting him. That sense of readiness, alert and cautious and wary.

Tony trusts Rhodey, partly because of it. He wants to trust Loki, _so_ much.

"I shall like you for that," Loki declares, "although you are free to not like me, of course. Most people don't."

Rhodey rolls his eyes. "You talk your way into whatever trouble of your own Tony's hiding you from?"

There's a laugh in the magician's voice as he answers, "And talked my way out of it, too."

"Hey, really?" Tony interjects. "Everything's cool? No more Flat Top Gang?"

"For now, at least."

"Fantastic." _No, no, no, no, not fantastic, that was my excuse to keep you here._

Maybe his panic shows on his face, because Loki adds, "But if you'd like…" and trails off invitingly.

Tony doesn't have to be a genius to fill in that blank the way he wants to. "For the thousandth time, Loki, yes, I want you here."

"Maybe not here, at this exact moment, for a few minutes?" Rhodey cuts in. "Tony, we were going to look over the Jericho specs, remember?"

Snapping his fingers, Tony says, "Yes. That. I knew there was a reason you were here, and it couldn't have been just to interrogate my friend and laugh at my epic car refurbishment plans. Okay, so, schematics!"

Rhodey glances – it's not quite a glare – past him, and Loki raises one hand to wave it away. Somehow the hand ends up on Tony's shoulder and everything's better. "Regardless of what some people will tell you, I do know when I'm not wanted. Come find me, when you're done?"

He knows that last sentence was for him alone, and Tony turns his face up to the magician's – they're very close, suddenly, and he doesn't at all care what it looks like – to smile at him, warm and happy. There's amusement and a hint of mischief in those green eyes, and sparks biting at his shoulder, and he could stand here all day.

Except, work.

"You bet."

* * *

Rhodey hits him in the back of the head with the top-secret, proprietary, and hilariously dense Jericho missile launcher binder, which is over a thousand pages thick. So far. It'll be even bigger by the time the Jericho hits the market.

"Ow," Tony says without enthusiasm.

"At least keep him out of the classified files, won't you?" Rhodey sighs. "Why, Tony? Why must you always go after the disasters?"

Tony ignores that outrageous question and tells JARVIS to bring up the Jericho specs in the home server and render them in the totally obsolete wire-frame projection. "Why does everyone assume I'm sleeping with him?" he complains as the missile's skeleton lights up and the workshop lights go down accordingly.

He's not, after all. Although hell, does he ever want to.

Also, he realizes something. "Goddamn it, Rhodey, that was the shovel speech, wasn't it? Couldn't you just go the 'break his heart and I'll break your legs' route like everyone else?"

Rhodey, by the way, is awesome. There's only one non-stupid thing about that hidebound don't-ask-don't-tell military policy that looks down on people like Tony, makes them keep secrets from and tell lies to people they should be able to trust, that they _need_ to be able to trust just in case Tony's tech doesn't come through for them in the dangerous places they go to and the bad guys they deal with.

The only good thing about it? It doesn't apply to military contractors.

Which is a great thing, because Tony would be out of a job (for about ten seconds) if that were so, but the military would be screwed for a whole lot longer.

On the other hand, Rhodey has known that Tony is slightly bisexual for a long time, since MIT. They were already friends by the time the young officer found out that the wild-child boy genius – who was getting him through Intro to Applied Nuclear Physics, by the way – liked hot guys as well as just about all the girls.

"I needed to pass that class," Rhodey had said a few years later, "and you were way too much fun – outside the classroom, when you weren't making me want to put my head through a chalkboard – for me to pass up the chance of seeing what you'd do next. I had more important things to worry about with finals coming up and then I didn't see why it mattered at all."

If Rhodey's the only military-type person who knows, everything's okay. Tony doesn't show up to parties with a guy on his arm, doesn't get caught sending some guy home in a car with STARK on the license plate the next morning, doesn't flirt with pretty boys the way he does with pretty girls, openly and obviously, because people are stupid about things like that.

He could sleep with every girl in the Playboy magazine – and has – and be cheered on by envious fans, but just one picture of him with a certain green-eyed Vegas magician at his side, and the judgment of others will follow him around and jeer at him forever.

People get unreasonable about things like that, which is ridiculous. Tony's not hitting on them – he's really, really not – so why is it their problem what he does and with who, as long as no one's getting hurt?

This seems like a double standard, but Tony's been living with it, or at least hiding from it, all his life.

Rhodey, though, Rhodey doesn't care. He's the best. Even when he threatens the Incredible Brain with technical manuals. There are better ways to absorb technical manuals, like reading them, and Tony's a big fan of that.

"Try not to drool on your shoes, then," Rhodey scolds him, rolling his eyes.

Tony considers his many and various options, and settles for, "Shut up. Can we talk about missiles now?"

"God, yes. And, Tony? Last thing, I promise. Maybe you think you're pursuing him, but you're playing his game. You know that, right?"

Tony knows that.

But he _so_ doesn't care.

* * *

After two more full days, they still haven't managed to burn anything down, much to Pepper's surprise. She retires to her apartment with one last dire warning against lab explosions in the middle of the night, and otherwise washes her hands of them.

Or so Tony assumes, based on the somehow very pointed click of the door to her wing of the Malibu house closing behind her. How does she do that?

Instead of wondering about it any longer, he goes looking for his magician, a phrase he's growing more and more fond of. There's something delightfully ludicrous about Tony Stark, scientist-engineer-rationalist second to none, having a practicing magician as one of his closest friends.

He wanders through the house on autopilot, watching the cleanerbot – it's not smart enough to have a name – trundle around the legs of chairs and extricate itself from behind a sofa, gobbling up what might be a sock he'd thrown at the fan at some point as part of a wildly petty argument about centripetal vs. centrifugal force. With himself, at that.

The debate rages on.

The rooftop balcony has quickly become one of Loki's favorite places in the house, and that's where Tony finds him, looking up at the stars.

"Hey, spaceman," Tony says, and laughs when Loki aims a halfhearted swipe at him, one hand curled into a tiger's claw, nose wrinkled in a snarl that bares a couple of teeth. "See anything out there you like?"

"That I can see them at all is a pleasure," Loki answers, leaving his hand where it's fallen on Tony's shoulder absently. There's something bitter in his smile as he looks away, back towards the sky. "The city forgets that they're out there, I believe."

"Do you get away from it, sometimes? Go looking?"

"Not at the expense of more desert." A momentary scowl turns into a smirk. "If you were not so afraid of heights, I would show you the stars from the top of the Stratosphere tower."

"Hey, hey, not fair! Who's afraid of heights? I have a healthy respect for construction zones, that's all, unlike some complete lunatics I could mention. Bring it on! I've been up there before. Hell of a view. I always wonder if I can see my house from up there. Probably not, but I know I've got a couple of pairs of binoculars. I'll dig 'em up, follow you anywhere."

Before he can stop himself, he adds, "Shame we can't see your house from there. Or, you know, you've got to live somewhere in Las Vegas these days, maybe a hint?"

"Don't pry, Tony." That hand moves to the back of his neck, but only so Loki can shake him gently, like a rambunctious puppy. "I'm not overly fond of people who go fishing. Stop it."

Loki's smirk turns _evil_. "And I don't speak of the deck. When I say the top of the tower, I _mean_ it."

It takes him a second, calling the dizzying Stratosphere needle to mind, but then – "No," Tony denies, laughing, believing it. "No way. I don't believe you. On the roof? The wind shear alone would be – I don't even know, impossible, though. There's no way to climb up there. Is there?"

"If you know where to look."

"No way. Someone would see you! We'd get in so much trouble! When can we go?"

The magician laughs, swipes his thumb across Tony's – suddenly racing – pulse, lets him go. "You are a madman after my own heart."

It's clearly meant to be high praise, and Tony takes it as such. And hell, if their own particular forms of madness don't spiral together more than he ever could have dreamed of. What they could _be,_ together – oh, Tony wants that.

 _Missed your chance, idiot,_ he curses himself. _Should have kissed him the moment he touched you._

Instead, he says, "C'mon, spaceman. Come play Mars with me. Stars'll still be there later."

* * *

"I don't know this game," Loki says curiously as Tony ransacks various drawers in one of the smaller living rooms. "And I have learned many."

"You _do_ live in Las Vegas."

"How is it played?"

"It's not really a game. Doesn't come in a box. I made it up, me and some of the Stark Industries engineers. Seriously, you have not seen nerdy until you see an engineers' game night around here. Sometimes if I've been working closely with a team and we're doing a good job I'll invite them over for an epic game night. That's why there are so many board games lying around in here, if you were wondering." Tony steals the tokens out of an old Catan box and adds them to the pile of counters and – yes, _shit_ is the word he's looking for here – in the middle of the floor. "I think the map's on the bookcase, can you grab it?"

Loki gets distracted by the books, to Tony's amusement.

"Any day now, spaceman. But Mars is a great game. It's like Dungeons and Dragons, except there aren't any dragons, except in Fantasy Mars, and there aren't any dungeons, except in War Mars, and there aren't really quests, either, unless you want there to be, so I guess it's not like Dungeons and Dragons at all."

The magician blinks at him. "I don't think I understood a single word in that sentence, nor the meaning of them together. Is this what you're looking for?"

He pulls what looks like a frozen paper explosion from behind an old and massive radio. It's actually a giant, multi-folded map, and like all such maps, is impossible to refold properly once it's been opened.

"That's it. Over here."

When they get it unfolded – it's the size of a decent area rug and Tony had it printed specially while he was on one of his _but spaaaaace_ jags – the terrain of Mars is divided out into two hemispheres beneath their hands. Penciled-in remnants of previous games are barely visible across its surface, and there's a hole in Utopia Planitia where an engineer had insisted on establishing a spaceship construction zone and had stabbed a stylus through it by accident during a vicious argument with one of her colleagues.

All the major landmarks are there, with rover landings in blue.

Tony picks up a miscellaneous handful of counters and shoves them over towards his friend, who's sitting back on his heels just around the corner of the map. What he thinks of it, Tony can't tell.

"Okay, so, Mars. Nobody there yet, but let's say we put some people there. And then we just make stuff up. Kind of at random, like so." He flips a Battleship token at the map. "First expedition lands near Tharses Montes, on the equator. Fantastic. This is a space elevator game. You know what one of those is?"

Loki parses his way through the concept, which saves Tony the trouble – it's no trouble – of the space elevator rant and, at least, of putting _nano-_ in front of everything in lieu of solving the _so many_ engineering problems with space elevators now. "I…believe so."

"So what do you think happens next?"

And he _does_ understand it, and Tony _adores_ this man, because he adds a penny – there's a lot of crap mixed in with these counters – to the summit of Pavonis Mons. "That's where the base of it would go, if I understand the concept."

"God, I'm crazy about you," Tony says. "We need drinks. Also solar panels, there's all this flat nothingness to the north –"

He kind of regrets making up the rule about rolling a die 20 – there's some D&D in this game, just much less complicated – to see if various Mars colonization and terraforming efforts work, but the inevitable penalty drinks are worth it.

It's a lovely, lovely evening, and nothing is even on fire.

"My brother and I used to –" Loki says at one point, before muttering what must be a curse under his breath and changing the subject as clumsily as Tony's ever heard. "Never mind. What's Fantasy Mars?"

Tony's trying to get enough helpful die rolls to be able to rebuild the base on the plains of Cyane Fossae, the imaginary Mars expedition making its way toward the pole to find out if there's any water ice there. There could be. He would go look, if he could get there in the first place. At the very least, they can use the dry ice for the greenhouses.

"Yeah, that one's fun. Crap, this die hates me. Are you messing with it?"

"Would I do that?"

" _Yes._ Yes, you would, and I don't know how, but you would. Fantasy Mars has the Lowell canals, and oxygen comes standard, we don't have to mess about with terraforming because there's already life there. Someone always tries to map out Barsoom and populate it with tharks. I think they make half of those rules up on the spot. Pass me the whiskey? Where'd your glass go? Anyway, and then they get into fights with the Heinlein fanboys, and I have to appoint myself King of Mars and banish them to opposite hemispheres, and send out the tripods when they start wars with each other."

He makes some laser noises. Loki laughs at him.

"No laughing at the laser noises. Lasers are cool. More whiskey for you."

JARVIS chips in the occasional fact as they conquer the planet together. Loki takes to the idea like he's waged a campaign before, moving pieces around on the map as if planning the invasion of Normandy rather than an empty, airless planet.

In between they make up slightly tipsy stories about what the expedition commander's secret motivations for dividing up the group could be. For some reason Martian gremlins start sabotaging equipment, unless they're not gremlins but endless dry sand and the planet's wimpy excuse for an atmosphere and superstitious colonist-explorers. And in no time at all there's a splinter colony hiding out in Valles Marineris, getting lost in caves and building outposts, and raiding the dry ice mining routes to make dry ice bombs.

"Actually, that's a great idea," Tony says excitedly, gulping down the last of his glass of whiskey. His head spins, but he can't regret it, because he's slumped against Loki's shoulder for support and he might as well just stay there. "Not the bombs, that's how stupid people lose fingers. But the Valles, that's like a pre-made habitat, we'd just have to build the roof over some of the smaller ones… JARVIS, add that to the proposal file, would you? _One_ of these days NASA's going to run out of funding and have to come to me."

There's a madcap collection of counters all over Mars by now, Monopoly cars trundling around the pole and Risk army men camped out on Phobos, and either Loki's moving them when he's not looking, or Tony's just that drunk.

Loki doesn't seem _nearly_ as drunk, not from this angle, and Tony knows the man has matched him drink for drink.

He waves a hand and loses his balance just a bit. "You can be the creative director in charge of invading Mars, or something. I'll think of a title, and we'll do this for real someday, okay?"

Yes. That is the plan. Loki will still be around by then and Tony won't have chased him off, and then they'll be spacemen together for real. It's gonna be great.

"Why am I so much drunker than you?" Tony demands, blinking far too much. "I wanted to get you drunk sometime. There's no justice."

His friend smiles down at him, eyes bright. "You're right."

"My favorite words."

"Enough for you."

" _Not_ my favorite words."

But Loki manages to slip away from him and get to his feet _and_ pick Tony up all before the engineer has noticed that he's gone, and they end up on the couch, which is…really nice.

They'd just about taken over Mars anyway. Planet will still be there later too.

"Okay," Tony says into his friend's favorite jacket. JARVIS dims the lights, because he's quite the smartass for something that doesn't even _have_ an ass. Or he's trying to be helpful. "That was fun. Remind me to teach you to play D&D, you'll clean up."

Loki's laugh is low and delighted and _wonderful,_ and the movement at his side is an arm going around his shoulders, cradling him. So now he's sprawled out on the couch in the half-dark with a gorgeous Vegas magician as a pillow. Tony could stay here for the rest of the night. Maybe they can just do that.

And for a while, they do. Tony tries to remember where he left his brain – he suspects a Las Vegas hotel room, over two years ago – and gives up when Loki starts combing his fingers absently through Tony's hair, which _definitely_ keeps him from wandering off into drunken fantasies.

He can find his drunken fantasies right here, thanks, right next to the sober fantasies and the dreams.

"I liked the game, Tony," Loki murmurs sometime later, by which point Tony's both nearly catatonic and fighting the urge to kiss the man senseless so that at least they'll be even.

"Yeah, well –" He's so drunk. "– I like you, so we're even. Wow, I wish I didn't."

"Oh?" Loki sounds amused, not offended. That's good.

"Didn't mean it like that." With a great effort, Tony props himself up to a point where he can actually look at him.

That was a mistake. All the alcohol in his bloodstream – and the blood, while he's at it – lights up from its smolder and starts roaring like a blowtorch in his ears.

Because _god, god,_ Tony can't remember why they haven't been in and out of a dozen beds already, and this couch, and maybe a couple of floors, why he doesn't forget the game and give up on trying to figure Loki out – he's missing something significant, and he no longer cares, not when he's got the attention span of DUM-E when it comes to pretty people, but _this man_ has kept his attention and kept him guessing for years.

 _No one_ does that. _No one._

And _hell,_ he's drunk but there's no way those eyes are saying no.

"'cause then," Tony tries to catch up with his last sentence and back up at the same time, "then I could kiss you, and you'd punch me, and you could sell that to the tabloids. And they'd be lining up to give you lots of money, and then you could retire somewhere safe from those thugs."

Loki smiles – approvingly. "Devious," he says, nodding.

Tony manages to sit up all the way, which puts him at a safer distance, and ignores most of him, which is screaming _what the hell are we doing?_ and demanding _that, that, all of that, now!_

Except long-embedded, deep-scored reflexes are kicking in, the ones that keep him from hitting on guys while he's drunk and his judgement is so far up the chute it need an oxygen mask. The ones that draw the line hard and accept no compromises, because he's got to be careful.

And he can't be careful and drunk at the same time.

And he knows he's in his own home and they're alone and Loki's not going to backstab him to the tabloids, and _nothing_ about his friend is saying _no_ , but –

Old habits.

Stupid ones, but stubborn ones.

Telling him _back the hell off._

Where were they before, when it might have made a difference?

"Yeah, but I like you. And I'm selfish, and I wanna keep you around. So I won't." He nods seriously, wishes he had another drink. A statement like that calls for a toast, to lost dreams and sacrificial resolutions and other romantic crap like that. Also, to numb him to that choke chain.

His friend laughs and runs his fingers through Tony's hair again before Tony can object – he doesn't really want to, that feels _insanely_ good – and actually taps him on the nose.

"You," Loki says, "are extremely drunk."

Denial is the theme now, so Tony goes with that because he can't think of anything else over the screaming. "Noooo…" he tries to protest.

He reconsiders, because even he doesn't believe him. "Okay, I'm very drunk, even for me. Still don't know why you're not. You had more than half that bottle. I was keeping track."

"Because I'm from another planet, remember?"

"My favorite Martian." Tony leans back as far as he can go, trying to look out the window behind them. Now that it's dark in here too he can see a few stars outside. They don't look all that much different upside down, and slightly sideways because he's slumped to the side against Loki's shoulder again.

That's safer. He can stay there. Stars don't give a damn.

"What if I didn't do that?" Loki asks.

"Huh?"

"I wouldn't punch you."

That gets through the whiskey fog, rattles the choke chain, and Tony wedges a mental lever underneath it before it can bite into him again. "Really?" Because if that's permission, if that's a _yes_ , then to hell with all that nonsense.

Loki smiles the Real Smile, dangerous and inviting and challenging, at him, and Tony's pulse roars.

"I keep knives up my sleeves, remember?"

His brain goes into an epic pileup, like someone's taken a major highway at rush hour and shaken it.

"Wait," Tony manages to get out, with some effort.

"Tony?" Loki props himself up on one elbow, looks down at him as if puzzled.

"…I forgot about that…"

"Tony," the magician says, soothingly, and there's maybe a hint of apology in his voice, "I'm teasing you. I'm only playing. If I objected to your company, I wouldn't be here. Calm down." He puts one hand on Tony's chest, over his heart, not quite pinning him down, but Tony can feel the strength behind that gesture, the power his friend hides behind playfulness and takes care not to use where anyone can see.

He looks up into green eyes, and absorbs the fact that he's being held down just as the couch cushions are absorbing him, but he doesn't have the resolve to object, because everything else is undulating softly away in unnerving spirals, except for this point. Except for the man hovering over him, focused and intent, long hair cascading around his shoulders, gaze seeking Tony's like he's the one looking for permission, like Tony hasn't been saying _yes_ since day one.

Because –

he –

wants –

and Tony reaches up to him, and wraps his hand around the nape of the magician's neck, and moves –

just as Loki pulls away.

and smiles at him.

"Oh, Tony," Loki says, and Tony's _not_ mishearing the affection in his voice, or the regret, but _why…_ "You're sweet and you're clever and I like you, I really do. But you're so drunk, pet."

"I'm not," Tony tries to say, or maybe it's "Please," but he doesn't get to it, because there are lips on his, Loki is kissing _him_ , slowly and gently and perfectly chastely and _maddening, agonizing_ , that hand on his chest splayed out and keeping him there, helpless, when all he wants is to lunge into the warmth just above him, demand and devour and take and be taken and make him cry _out_ –

It goes on forever, and it's over in heartbeats – part of Tony counts, _one, two, three, four_ as the only way to stay sane as Loki kisses him, patient and tempting – and it takes all that time for him to realize that Loki's not _letting_ him touch, other hand wrapped around Tony's wrist tightly.

Someone whines. Tony suspects it's him.

He does not fucking care.

He's still burning even as Loki pulls away, a rueful smile on those lips, and he doesn't get a chance to react, dazed, mindless, _starving_ , when for a split-second Loki dips down, eyes flickering closed, and laps his tongue across Tony's desperately parted lips –

Before he's gone again, and for real this time, and Tony can't even remember where he is without that weight pinning him down, like he's floating weightless without roots or wings, cast adrift and lost, lost. The darkness behind his eyes is no refuge at all, just a black backdrop to be lit up with _need_ gasping and unsatisfied.

"Be sober, pet," Loki whispers into his ear, breath warm and close, "and come find me, if you still want to."

Tony remembers how to open his eyes just in time to see the door close behind that impossible, maddening tease of a magician, leaving him alone in the half-dark with a world – the wrong world – at his feet.

* * *

The shower is stupid-cold.

It hits him like a slap, like a mug of coffee and a good night's sleep and a blast of electronic-blue light, before he manages to fumble it off again and swear it back into whatever arctic ocean someone hooked the plumbing into.

And it doesn't make the slightest bit of difference, because even as Tony's scrubbing the worst of the alcohol out of his mouth while simultaneously trying to peel off his freezing-wet clothes and replace them with drier ones, all he can think is that they're not going to stay on for long.

* * *

"You scare me, sometimes," says Tony, standing in the door of the game room and feasting on the sight of _his_ magician, curled up at the end of the couch with one of the books he'd been looking at earlier, reading by the light of the swooshy lamp in the corner that was probably very expensive and made by a genuine exhibited artist or something, and was worth everything for the way it's turning Loki into a play of light and shadow, planes and angles and razor cheekbones; now that's art Tony can appreciate.

Or rather, Loki had been reading it. He's folded it closed, one finger caught in it to mark his place, and is staring across the room at Tony. Watchful, waiting.

Tony steps over the threshold, lets the door fall closed behind him, cutting off the light from the hallway even as he skirts around the remains of the Mars game on the floor. There are _Legos_ on that thing. "Not that it's a bad thing. Every time, I think _not boring_ , and you know that's the highest compliment I can give, right?"

"I know," Loki says, so softly Tony might have missed it, if he hadn't been listening. If he hadn't learned to listen. If he didn't have to try _._ If he didn't _want_ to try. The magician sets the book aside, curls a little more tightly into the corner of the couch to make a space for Tony to sit down next to him.

"I have no idea what game you're playing, or what the rules are, and you know what?" This, at least, is a game he knows how to play, knows and loves, knows and _wants_ so badly, and Tony reaches out, not all that far, runs one calloused hand over the back of Loki's longer, slimmer one, slips it beneath his sleeve and realizes with surprise that the knife sheath he'd felt there before, that Loki had teasingly threatened him with earlier, is nowhere to be felt.

He will deal with what that might mean, that a man who always keeps half a dozen knives literally to hand doesn't think he needs them here, later –

"I don't care," says Tony, and meets Loki's eyes, and smiles, twisted and rueful and hopeful and inviting. "You win."

He gives up on hesitating – _come find me, if you still want to_ – and does what he should have done _ages_ ago and leans in and kisses Loki like he means it.

Everything, _everything_ goes away as Loki kisses him back, fervid and hungry and uncompromising, and all that matters is the hand with a death grip on his side, strong enough to bruise, and the warmth of another body against his, demand and surrender all mixed together and melting, merging into each other.

Taste and touch and desire pulse between them, and he never wants it to stop.

"Oh, finally," Loki whispers in the tiny moment when Tony pulls away to breathe, a sip at the air and diving in again, kissing him open-mouthed and ravenous and following without hesitation when Loki splays a hand over one shoulder blade and pulls him down into something that works even better. The movement presses their bodies together, and a jolt of desire shoots through him, heat and friction and _delight_.

 _This,_ at least, Tony understands. Can revel in seeing those green eyes blow black as Tony licks at his throat, taking a perverse joy in marking bruises across pale skin, can cry out and rut against him as Loki's hands sweep up under his shirt as if counting off every rib and muscle, can sink into the nest of fireworks going off in his skull as thought and reason burn away and are replaced by how much he needs to lose himself in the mouth devouring his.

"Okay," he mutters, and forgets what he was going to say as fingernails scrape across his chest and the word turns into a whimper.

"Better than," and Tony can hear the smile, the Real Smile that Tony has always known was going to eat him alive someday. He forgets all of it except what those hands are doing to him, and the soft gasp against his ear as Tony all but collapses into Loki's arms, lost in the hollow of his throat and the faintest taste of sweat-salt-lust there, and _fuck_ , that's beyond good.

He manages to get out, "- have any idea how long I've wanted to –" except Loki catches his hand as Tony tries to move it and brings it up to his lips, kissing at Tony's fingers before drawing the first two of them into his mouth, and it's a cheap tease but it's maddening, a suggestion and a promise and erotic all by itself, and Tony wavers between watching hungrily and closing his eyes to focus on what it's doing to the rest of his body. His eyes flutter, stuck and glorious.

Whether Loki's murmur of "Mm-hmm," is a reply or a tease, Tony genuinely doesn't care, doesn't have the brain cells or the blood flow to figure anything out right now except for how much he wants to –

 _Fuck_ , he loves this. _This_ in all its forms, because sex is _fun,_ should be fun, when it's done right and everyone involved wants to enjoy it.

And sometimes, he can say things better when he's not having to say them at all, when the only language that matters is hands and bodies and heat and desire.

He makes jokes and covers over the darkness in the heart of him with sarcasm; nonexistent gods only know what Loki's hiding behind the glint of a knife blade and his wry, wild claims, and maybe there's nothing at all real in the words they say to each other, although Tony hopes there is, he wants there to be, because if all he wanted was a quick and meaningless tumble he'd have made this move long before, back when he didn't care –

But this is true.

Black curls tangling around his fingers are true; the way Loki laughs and twitches away when Tony taps one fingernail against that emerald stud earring, swatting his hand aside with a smirk and a glance inviting him to move that hand somewhere else, that's true; that Tony leans into a caress that cradles him like he's irreplaceable, like he's needed, that's true.

That Tony's never, never spent this long just kissing someone, that's true, and all the more delightful for it.

"Bed?" he asks at some point – it comes out as a plea, and he's not at all ashamed; he'll beg, if he has to, if that's what it takes, because he has to, he _has to_ get both their clothes off and do _something_ – oh, the things he wants to do to this man and with him – before the raging, trembling fire burning in his chest and his thighs and pooling in his groin like lava sets him ablaze and turns him to ash. "So many more options there."

Tony needs to bottle Loki's laugh; he could get drunk off it just by breathing in the fumes, and it's nothing less than _wicked_.

Not to mention hotter than any number of special hells.

"I was starting to believe you'd never ask."

* * *

 _End of Act One_

 _To be continued._


	6. Very Bad Things

ON WITH THE SHOW

 **Chapter Six: Very Bad Things**

Sometimes there are entire minutes at a time when Loki doesn't have to think of Asgard.

Sometimes he can doze in his rooms – never home, this isn't home; this city was _made_ for him, but it will never be home, and he will howl his throat bloody and dash himself to pieces against the blindness holding him at bay before he counts it such– and listen to the buzz of his magic around him, familiar and comforting. It's a sound that makes no noise, warmth that is not heat, a presence that does not intrude, and reassuring as the hilt of his knife in his hand is reassuring, his weapon against all the worlds that stand arrayed against him.

And he can forget.

He can think about his craft, the hum of magic through his body and the _snap_ of it, the joy of reshaping the world around him to fit his whims and his temper. And he can think about his lover, of late. He can savor those memories of phantom hands and heat and the game, and the warmth in eyes meeting his, unafraid, affectionate and fascinated.

Sometimes it almost doesn't hurt.

The spells locked away in the woven bracelet he wears, no more than a thought and a spark away, coil around his outstretched arm as he sprawls loose and careless and, for the moment, relaxed, furs kicked away off bare shoulders and exposing the long plane of his back to the empty room. Wary and near-paranoid by nature, raised in a warrior culture as Loki has always been, still he can lie seemingly unarmed and defenseless. Should anyone intrude within his rooms, he would know, and a flick of his fingers and there will be his favorite blade in his open hand, should he need it.

Other magics lie quiescent alongside it, each locked away in its own cord. They're quiet and still, their warmth no more than the heat that lingers even when the body has gone.

The inaudible song against his ear drove him half-mad, at first, but Loki has learned to ignore it, shoving his awareness of it down into a lightless dungeon and bolting the gate with all his strength. The advantages of the spell, locked in stone and caught in light and banded about with steel, sealed in place with blood and pain as he drove the tiny blade through his own skin and flesh, have more than paid for the irritation.

Loki has put years of his long, long life into finding ways to stay hidden from the prying eyes of the Gatekeeper, whose loyalties will not be swayed and who persists in casting his gaze over Asgard's younger prince just as he least wishes to be seen.

And oh, Loki will not grant the All-Father the satisfaction of knowing what his banished son is doing, how he spends his days and enjoys his nights and carefully, carefully forges a new weapon against those who have made themselves his enemies. If he is not wanted, then he will be _gone._ For now.

The spell that blinds Heimdall to Loki's movements was the first thing he did on this world, and it has served him well.

…it was almost the first thing he did, that is.

The first thing he had done had been to curse everyone he could think of, solidly and extensively, and the parched ground beneath his feet, and anything that stood against the night sky or fled in the darkness, and to this day he has no idea how long it took for the fires to go out and the earth to settle itself again.

When Loki curses things, they _stay_ cursed, and the wise should make for the edge of the world and pray.

He made the gemstone so that it would not interfere with any of his other magics, which he depends upon so greatly in this strange, backwards, fast-moving world, and the only reminder of its presence is the thrumming, a spell chanted unendingly. He can layer shields upon illusions upon invisibilities – one would think he could only be so invisible, but it seems not – and the bedrock of it remains undisturbed.

Still, the buzz of it irritates, driving him from his idle drowsing.

This, then, is the room that Loki wakes to, with no particular desire to rise or preoccupy himself with the doings of others, and alone – he allows no one else here, nor would they believe it, if they were permitted.

Loki thinks of it as a traveling room, for wherever he goes, there he can set the door, and pass through it, and find himself in the space he has built over centuries. It began as no more than the pocket dimension where he keeps things he might need, or that he wishes to hide, or that cannot be slipped into a sleeve and walked away with. Always to hand, never present.

At the moment, the door is hidden within the elaborate building called the Mirage, for no better reason than that he found the name fitting.

The door that links outside world to tiny universe might have led to a storeroom, originally, but the traveling room could fit a cathedral inside a cupboard, and Loki's rooms stretch out around him. Sunlight laps across the workroom where he fits his magic into the guises that the mortals of the city expect it to take, glowing lines crackling across wood and steel as they lie among softer craftwork, fabric and feathers. A beast in wire stands on its hind legs, propping itself up on the hilt of a knife driven into the table. Its outstretched wings have been bound up with cord, bracing them against each other until the day when it holds together well enough to take on a semblance of life.

A thousand scattered memories have been left here, over the centuries, mingling with those amassed of late. A battered plate of armor, claw marks still scored all but through it, has settled into an uneasy balance with the stack of soft books Loki has been collecting – he loves _stories_ , stories are lies made so charming that people _want_ to believe them, and this world has so many – and has left disordered wherever he discarded them. If she knew, the keeper of books, mistress of her own mysterious system, would scold him as she has done so often, for she dislikes inquisitive princes taking books from her shelves uninvited.

The crown he wore as a child ended up here, through some forgotten mischief. A mixture of cards, for this world's games of chance and for games of fortune-telling, along with similar tokens from other worlds, have scattered themselves across the floor. The furs piled on his bed are the relics of many long hunts across the realms, most of them won fairly, and all of them won hard. A paper-folded dragon, long and sinuous, floats under its own power on an endless patrol of the ceiling.

He keeps forgetting to undo that spell; he had not _meant_ to cast it so strongly, so long ago.

Adapting the traveling room to include this world's electrics had been a longer process than it should have been, but it saves the absurdity of the laptop – endlessly useful, and the technology called _search engine_ indispensable – being plugged into nothing at all. Still, most of the light in the room comes from sunlight, bright and clear and groping steadily towards the bed against one wall and the furs tangled across it.

Loki watches it creep across the floor lazily, floating between sleep and waking. He keeps his own hours, prowls out into the world beyond when he chooses, and answers to no one, and he is, for the moment, happy enough.

Except then his eyes follow the light back to its source, the window that occupies most of the wall. No barrier seems to stand between the room and the open air. The space is bordered by ornately carved columns, and opens out on a city of low terraces and watchtowers, small coiling streets and welcoming courtyards, all glowing with reflected golden light even within the shadow of the soaring palace. Trees and vines fill the spaces between, and beyond, the sea and the endless stars –

And Loki remembers.

 _Asgard._

And the knife goes in again.

Loki hurts. He misses home, the realm that should be his.

A snap of his fingers, and great city and glorious ocean and the sunlight of his world are gone, nothing more than an illusion. Loki turns his back on the memory of it, momentary contentment ripped away.

He should dismiss the spell forever, banish it to ether and reflection to fade and die, but he continues to return to it, helplessly. It is a temptation and a pain he cannot leave alone, like the sick fascination of prying open a wound to see the flesh within as the blood wells up again.

In the seconds between the memory, frozen in light and magic, disappearing and the light of ever-burning torches kindling, he casts about for something else, anything else, to think of except for the bile in his throat, _hate_ and longing tearing each other to shreds.

Ah. Of course.

His hand finds one of the marks at his throat, and Loki laughs, at once decadent and fond.

 _Tony._ The clever little mortal he's taken as a lover, who's going to be so very useful someday.

Loki is actually quite fond of the man, as it happens, and if he did not enjoy the things they do together, then he simply would not do them. He's willing to use sex as a weapon, or as a tool, but never against his own desires, and never against his partner's.

Trickster he may be, but he has _standards_ ; he is, after all, also a prince, and near enough to a god, as this world goes.

Yes, of course Loki wants something of him. Tony knows that. But he can afford to wait, and to play the game properly, if not quite fairly.

No one will get hurt, if they're both as clever as they know they are, and oh, but the man is a delight. Loki had enjoyed the chase, and he is quite enjoying being caught.

Tony's an edge walker; they have another term for it on this world, _adrenaline junkie,_ as if it were a drug, but _edge walker_ is what Loki would have named him, back home. He saw it in Tony in moments, and has since felt his lover's racing pulse beneath his hands, on that point where fear and exhilaration mate and climax in trembling desire.

Delicious.

It's been some months since Tony finally made the move Loki had been setting him up for, both aware of the steps as predetermined as a sparring match, the details variable but the destination inevitable and desired.

Luring Tony in had not been a challenge, Loki muses to himself happily, eyes drifting closed again. That had been _easy_. He could have taken the man within hours, he knows, if he had wanted to.

But he does so love to play.

He judged that he could be patient, and play _hard to get_ , the term is here, and let Tony think him won.

Although perhaps he was. Loki had not expected to find a kindred spirit in the bright mind he had woven a net for. And yet –

They are more alike than not, he suspected, and then knew, and he cannot bring himself to mind that he can see himself in a mortal shadow.

Oh, but Tony is someone after his own heart. A prince of this world, after a fashion, as Loki understands it. Both of them children of power, clever and alienated, striving for more. And cold and distant as those powers may be, still they both reach for them no matter how cold it burns, because they're going to do _better_ when it's theirs, as it should be, because they deserve it, and they'll be truly glorious then.

Loki doesn't get cold, but under the All-Father's gaze he has learned what it is to freeze.

And at Tony's side, he is as warm as he can ever remember being, wrapped in the sheltering, welcoming cloak of the man's willing company and the dark, delicious heat of shared desires.

"I…don't know how to do this," Tony had said late the next morning, after the night when they'd conquered a world and then each other. He'd looked anywhere but at Loki, who had taken advantage of that to make sure that the mortal would not see the smile in his eyes – it was a _very_ comfortable bed, and part of Loki wants to take Tony home with him one day and introduce him to what Asgard considers luxuries fit for princes. And there had been last night, and then there had been the morning, too, and there was something to be said for lingering in a space so thoroughly claimed, with the worst of it shoved aside.

"So come back." Tony had been turned away from him, the knobs of his spine bare, and Loki had counted them off with one leisurely hand before choosing one to taste, willing to bow his head in the worthy cause of mouthing at his lover's skin. "I'm sure I can find something to teach you."

A shame Tony can't know what that moan of "Oh _god,_ " means to him – yes, yes indeed, but it must remain a private joke, for now. "That's not what I meant. But let's do that."

"Tell me, then." He'd wrapped his arms around the man's body and held him there, hands deliberately too close and not close enough.

"Fuckin' tease," Tony had complained, with no real energy. "Drive me crazy," already a much-repeated endearment. "I mean, this. I don't usually sleep with people I'm going to have to deal with again. Much less. You know. A friend."

A pause. Loki declined to make it any easier for him.

"I don't…do…relationships, silly word, but we're already friends, and that's, I guess, sort of one. Just now, with sex. And, well, can we do that?"

Humans.

Loki's going to generalize here; he usually doesn't have much use for them.

But he does have a use for Tony, and what else has he been keeping track of the man for, if not to have a ready reply for this?

"Well," Loki had said as if thinking, pulling away, "we can, I suppose, go about this in one of two ways."

Tony had looked almost pathetically hopeful. "Yeah?"

"We can pretend this never happened, and move on." Loki had preoccupied himself with combing through his hair with his fingers; he _likes_ his hair long and practice has paid off. He could feel Tony watching – staring at – him. It was pleasant, and if he was preening, slightly, under those hungry, wondering eyes, so be it. "And you can do what you want."

"I…don't like that option. I liked last night, a lot, and this morning, and I guess the past couple of, _damn,_ years before that…look, usually I'm hiding in my workshop by now and Pepper's having shoes thrown at her."

That knot was probably going to need a tiny amount of magic to get through; he would have to train Tony not to _pull_ so… But the man had looked past illusions and teleportation and transformation; he would not notice such a small and cheap magic even before his eyes. There. Loki had pushed his hair back the way he likes it, shrugged, and met Tony's eyes in a challenge. "Or, while I won't be your tame lover and tail around on your arm –"

"Definitely not." Tony had waved his hands in the air between them. "There are so many reasons we can't do that. Which I guess you knew."

"– if you wish this to continue, Tony, understand this. I told you yes, and I meant it. But I don't share. Either this is ours, and only ours, or we are nothing, less than what we were before. So decide what you want."

That, Loki had decided, would be a reasonable enough ultimatum, something Tony would understand and by extent believe he understood more.

And Loki doesn't like people meddling with what's his. Everything he's built for mortal eyes destroys itself if tampered with. The traveling room would prove _most_ inhospitable to anyone but him, should they somehow manage to come here uninvited. He's willing to hazard that his rooms on Asgard have remained undisturbed in his absence – most of those trap-spells are reversible, but he's never been at all sorry that people who can't keep their hands to themselves have gotten bitten.

Part true, part bait – he is indeed the tease Tony calls him, even if it's sometimes just to keep people at bay until he's figured out what he's doing next – so true enough, on balance.

And he'd gotten up, and he'd gotten dressed, having already marked where his clothes had gone – on Asgard bodies are not remarked on, except in training and in outright desire, but he was in a Midgardian house so he'd play, most of the time, by Midgardian rules – and left Tony to think about it.

Loki had been almost completely sure the man would follow.

He'd been right.

He does so like it when that happens.

Midgard has gotten stories right; they have also gotten _food_ right. This world has so much more variation.

Still, Loki had barely assembled himself something to eat out of Tony's kitchen – or one of them – before the man had padded into the room after him, and didn't even bother with words. Had just come over to the chair Loki had moved to the window, and climbed into his lap, and kissed him a lot.

Breakfast had been postponed.

It's been _good_ between them, since, and Loki is entirely pleased.

Tony's _his_ now, and oh, is Tony going to be useful…

Under torchlight, in his hidden rooms, drowsing and gloating and scheming – happy enough, that is to say – Loki smiles, dreaming.

And then a burning wire snaps around his left wrist, pulling tight and _hurting_ , like a molten garrote from nowhere, without warning, instant and impossible.

Crying out in a breathless gasp, barely a noise, Loki recoils. He twists away, reacting on instinct and long training, trying to escape from an attacker he – he! – failed to see coming. But the pain follows him, it has him tight by the wrist and will not let go as the fire slices toward the bones.

It burns, but it does not hold, and Loki clasps his wrist against his chest as if it had been struck by a horse's hoof and broken, huddling around it protectively even as he tries to think.

Realization follows close in pain's tracks as he reaches for his magic to defend himself. He finds himself trying to pull away from one of his own spells as one of the cords in his bespelled bracelet flares brighter than it ever has before.

It's a tracking spell, simple and easy and ephemeral, invisible to all other eyes but Loki's, and the other end of it is rooted in Tony, has been for years now. Tony doesn't know, of course. The connection only goes one way, and it only lets Loki track him. It isn't a puppet's string, only a trace.

It has led Loki to him, invariably, through mobs and through darkness.

It has shown him hints of what the man is feeling, faint echoes of frustration and amusement and exhaustion, and shadowy jolts of pleasure, but never like this.

Never this strong. Never _pain_.

Now the tracking spell, binding them together, shrieks with an endless moment of _shockpainfear._

And goes blank.

A handful of heartbeats go by as Loki pants for breath and cradles his spell as if it were his lover, as if it worked both ways, as if he might be able to reach out and soothe that scream of pain. He hurts, not just the phantom pain echoing through the link but the wave of fear that slams through him, ice-hot and shocking in the strength of it.

Loki is happy and willing to manipulate Tony, but he doesn't want the man _dead –_

His hand trembles when he holds it out, palm up, fingers crooked, and he cannot make it stop. But the wolfthread answers to him, materializes when he summons it: a ghostly, glimmering thread branching off from the woven bracelet, physical metamorphizing to magical and phasing into view.

Heart pounding – _no, no, no_ – Loki plucks at the wolfthread the way this world's singers call music from their guitars, free hand clenching into a fist.

But the connection holds, and there's no sensation of a snapped end waving free.

Alive. _Alive._

But frightened, and in pain.

Alone, unseen by even the all-seeing, Loki collapses back to his furs in relief and tries to think, tries to figure out what could be happening on the other end of the wolfthread, which disappears as his attention shifts from it.

He folds his hands over his eyes and thinks back.

He and Tony had been together last night – or perhaps the night before that; the illusory sunlight of Asgard bears no relationship to the turnings of this world – here in Las Vegas. There had been…some kind of presentation – no, a celebration – that Tony had been called to and had fled from.

 _behold my mad escape skillz see you soon_ , Tony had texted.

And for a time, they'd wandered and talked and pretended they had never touched and kissed and wrung gasps and screams from each other's bodies, with the eyes of the world on them – well, on Tony, at least, for now.

They'd played run-and-find-me – no, here it's hide-and-seek – among the gaming floors with Tony's colonel –

 _Rhodey, Loki, call him Rhodey, everyone does, he won't mind_.

– until he'd caught them because they were laughing too hard and the casino workers had teamed up with Rhodey to point him towards them. As if Loki had nothing better to do than meddle with their games. Most of the time.

 _You coming?_ Tony had asked.

 _Is that an invitation?_

 _Always. Dammit. Incoming Obie, eleven o'clock. Meet you at the car?_

They'd split up so that Tony's – Loki has settled on _former regent_ to describe Obadiah Stane, trying to fit the man into his worldview – wouldn't see him, as Tony still doesn't want him anywhere near Loki.

 _He won't understand._

And then there was a storytelling girl at the car, chasing Tony for questions, and Loki had let Tony see him, and then turned himself invisible as soon as Tony looked away, and thoroughly enjoyed his lover's double-take as Tony tried to find him again and answer questions at the same time. Pretty, pushy, blond girl. She'd propositioned Tony, and he'd turned her down.

Loki _had_ been pleased with that, and had rewarded Tony most thoroughly for keeping to their agreement.

And then the next morning Tony had had to leave, traveling to one of their war zones to show off how well he can make things explode. Pepper had tried to enlist Loki to make Tony hurry up and go, as he read and kept Tony company in the downstairs workshop.

Pepper – Loki thinks _handmaiden_ is not an acceptable description on Midgard, but that is nevertheless how he understands her – has so resigned herself to their relationship that she's begun trying to appeal to Loki as the sane person in the room every so often.

Loki thinks this is hilarious.

Needless to say, he hadn't been much help.

But Tony had gone off to explode things eventually, and Loki had assured him that _yes, Tony, I can make my own way back, and no, pet, I'm not going to tell you how_ , and had condescended to be kissed goodbye.

If someone has exploded _Tony_ , then that is unacceptable.

Loki doesn't like people messing with what's his.

 _Alive,_ the wolfthread whispers, but it's guttering low.

* * *

He answers the phone when it rings, days later. Loki does not like to be called for, but this is important.

"Tony?"

The voice that answers him is the wrong one, and Loki bites back a curse that would have badly damaged the intricately painted wall and possibly the huddle of people in the way. _"No, no, Loki, I'm sorry, it's Pepper. I know I'm not supposed to have this number, but –"_

But he's not surprised, and he's worried enough – dark stabs and tugs of _hurting_ and _fear_ and _panic_ have pulsed through his arm for days – to let that transgression go. "But of course you do, because Tony will misplace it beneath a toolbox someday. Why are you calling me?"

Play the role. Pretend he knows nothing, that her call is a surprise. Loki can profess – and truly believe – himself innocent with a bloody knife in his hands and everything around him for ten paces on fire and a dozen witnesses howling in outrage; keeping his voice level should be simple.

" _I –"_ She stops, and must gather herself, for when she speaks again her voice does not waver either. _"It'll be in every newspaper and on every channel by tomorrow. It's already leaked online. But I thought you should know that Tony's missing."_

Missing, not dead. "Tell me. If you would." Someone tries to catch his attention as they argue over the positioning of the spotlight on the circular stage, and Loki waves him away, caring less than ever about the role he's created for himself here to keep himself busy.

If he cannot rule, or lead, or walk among the realms and learn all he can of them against the day he must meet them in war across the battlefield or the banquet table; if he can, in short, no longer be the prince a step from the most powerful throne in nine realms he was born to be, then he can at least be the sorcerer he was trained as, or he will go mad. Even if all he's doing is playing games for the entertainment of children, at least this place _appreciates_ his gifts, which is a pleasure Loki had rarely encountered on Asgard.

The intrusive man retreats. There are some benefits to having a reputation for temper.

" _You know he was in Afghanistan, with the Army. The convoy he was in was attacked,"_ Pepper Potts says. _"Rhodey tells me…it was a mess, but…everyone else is accounted for, except him."_ Dead, he interprets readily; Loki has commanded battlefields, heard the reports of soldiers, listened to failures hidden behind words.

" _Rhodey says he's probably alive, that he's too valuable to kill. The insurgents over there, they take hostages, demand ransoms to fund their terrorist cells, and as high-profile as Tony is, as rich as Stark Industries is –"_

 _Alive, hurting_ , the cord around his wrist pulses, and Loki clenches one fist against it, imagination and memory painting horrors as vivid as any he might create to frighten his enemies. "I see."

She repeats, _"I thought you should know."_ And after a moment of hesitation, adds, _"You…matter…to Tony. I've known him for almost fifteen years, and I've never seen him keep anyone who doesn't work for him around for this long."_

There's a tiny, bitter laugh in her voice as she says, _"Damage control if the press ever found out about you almost sounds appealing right now."_

She sounds very, very scared, and like she's struggling not to be and failing.

Loki, on the other hand, is furious.

"Thank you," Loki says, "for telling me. I would ask you to tell me if you hear anything –"

" _Of course,"_ Pepper interrupts.

He ignores her. "– but I'm afraid I'm going to be difficult to contact for a while."

No one at the MGM Grand ever finds out how one of the walls of the auditorium crumples, starburst-spiderweb radiating out from a massive but invisible impact, as if a wrecking ball had flown into it and disappeared, nor how smoking furrows carve themselves into one of the red-carpeted aisles between the seats as if some enormous animal had raked acid-tipped claws down it, or why every single light bulb in the place blows out _bang, bang, bang_ precisely one at a time, scattering a rain of thin glass into the air as a wave of darkness sweeps through.

By then directors and performers and lighting technicians and sound engineers and costume designers and choreographers and bystanders all are running, a hardy few pulling out cameras and small recorders, and a couple of entrepreneurial spirits already dialing publishers that eat up stories about hauntings and possession and monsters.

If anyone notices the magician striding away, eyes fixed on the middle distance and scowling, hands flexing in and out of claws…

They're smart enough not to mention it until Loki is _well_ out of earshot and gone.

* * *

So, someone has taken what's _his._

Someone is hurting his lover for something as petty as gold or Midgard's silly territorial squabbles, and if anyone is going to hurt Tony, Loki would quite like to be the one doing so, and in some manner that they'll both enjoy it. There are edges to walk and there are _edges,_ and some of them are high-up and empty, and some of them are close and intimate, and they can be exquisite, if walked joyfully and willingly.

He's not nearly done with Tony yet. Loki still needs him.

Someone has taken the weapon he's forging and forced it into a crack and wedged it askew.

And that is not to be tolerated. Rage tugs at his throat, and were this Asgard he would already be running, body shifting around him into something readier to express it. Something made to howl at the sky and leap, tearing with fangs and claws and wrenching limbs from carcass, blood in dire wolf- or dagger-jawed cat throat or splashed across falcon talons.

Not all of the furs on his bed were won in hunts from horseback.

And there is ice in his heart, just a splinter, but it is a sliver as solid as a Jotun spear, untouched by the fury burning around it.

Loki does not recognize it, and it serves only to provoke him further. It registers only as another source of pain, however strange, and an anxious vulnerability as though he were in beast form with his belly bared to a sword.

It has been so long since he was afraid for someone other than himself, after all.

* * *

The tale of how he crosses the ocean and enters the battlefield that has taken his lover is hardly worth telling. Suffice it to say that where illusion and a glib tongue and sharp ears will not admit him, Loki's talent for shapeshifting and outright invisibility will more than make up for the lack.

In this way he has evaded guards and walked unseen among warriors, concealed himself in the rafters of pavilions and read screens over the shoulders of commanders and coordinators alike. For hours, invisible and in the form of one of the black and tan dogs he saw patrolling at the heels of men and warrior women, he slept curled up among crates and pallets that stank of gunpowder and armor-cloth, all strapped to each other and to the walls of the lumbering behemoth of a plane as it wallowed through the air.

And always, he listened, for Loki believes in knowing his enemy and his allies alike, and most especially those who do not know that they might be useful, for those are the easiest to use.

They sounded like warriors everywhere, speaking of the battle and their homes and families, teasing each other and testing their places among each other, seeing to their weapons and their supplies and sharing stories. Quite against his will the dog's tail had wagged once, twice, at the familiar sounds until Loki had forced it still, ears going back in irritation at himself.

The shapes he takes have impulses of their own, instincts running the body while his mind continues working outside them. Such reflexes sneak through far too easily.

Now he stands in his Aesir form again, beyond the guard posts, outside the barriers of sharp wire and blunt stone, looking out at a new corner of this vast world that he has never seen before. On a whim, he has resumed his favorite armor, the green and black leather and dark gold inlays intricate and as familiar as his own skin. As if this were home, and he had set forth to retrieve some warrior who looks to him and counts him his lord, who trusts his prince to come after him when his master's battle has kept him unable to return.

But the wind off the desert howls, and Loki grits his teeth against it, raising one hand against the blazing sun and the dust wafting on the wind.

He _hates_ deserts.

And not unreasonably, given that he was dumped into a strange land in another realm and left to fend for himself only a few years ago, his family andhis worldall turned against him.

Loki is blind to the beauty of it, to the minimal and understated elegance that underlies the most seemingly barren desert. To him the desert means only _abandoned, exiled, rejected_.

For days, he had wandered aimlessly, spell-stone humming with the power it had tasted in his blood, with nowhere to go and nothing he wanted to do except return home. Taking the form of a desert wolf in response to the sound of their cries after darkness fell, he'd begun and won a thousand arguments in the safety of his own mind, reducing the All-Father and his brother and his brother's lickspittle friends and all the court to humiliated ribbons beneath the force of his hate and rage and bitterness and spite.

Hungry, thirsty, hurting, lost, _ashamed_ , he'd tracked self-pity behind him in his pawprints and howled it to the empty, uncaring skies as the wolf's instincts had aligned with his own.

It hadn't been long before he'd encountered some of Midgard's people, and of those first encounters Loki would prefer to say little and less. His only comfort is that he had still been a wolf, and that he _had_ realized in time that the bright-eyed machine charging down the level, smooth path was not going to stop.

He's still not quite sure whether wolf body or metal car would have come off better from that, but he has no desire to find out. Aesir heal quickly, but shapeshifting complicates things.

But on Midgard as on Asgard, all roads lead somewhere, and the wolf had stayed hidden and scavenged food from the margins of the town – the prince within _fuming,_ to be brought so low, and the memory still enrages him – and scavenged information, too. Lying quietly in the darkness, he had listened and learned much about this new world.

He had no plans to remain a wolf digging through human garbage and hunting desert rodents longer than he had to, after all.

Almost inevitably, as he worked his way north, he had ended up in Las Vegas – it was a name he'd heard on many human tongues, and he grew curious – and found a place where illusion was expected, and magic was applauded, and a somewhat unusual man with no apparent past, but a gift for showmanship, might find welcome.

But _Asgard_ – the thought of home has never been far from him.

One day, he will return, and to that end he faces another desert, in another place, in another time, with his lover held somewhere within it.

Still invisible, well aware of his surroundings even if none of them are aware of _him,_ Loki raises his left hand before him and calls up the wolfthread to find his path. He's never tested how long he can stay invisible, for it is, as he'd mentioned to Tony, one of his easiest tricks, simply a matter of telling light to go elsewhere… But this is a land at war, he knows, and he has no desire to be shot by accident.

A shot from one of Midgard's little guns wouldn't kill him, but it would piss him off immensely, and he's not here to start fights, or finish them.

Except for one.

Silver light whispers over his palm, trailing away towards the mountains in the distance, and when he turns his hand back and forth, the visible end of the ephemeral string continues to point as straight as a finely fletched arrow.

So, that way. How far, he does not know, but Tony can't be close to this base, or the soldiers would have found him by now.

Sighting on the highest point of the mountain, Loki reaches within himself and remembers what it's like to be a wolf, throwing his magic and the essence of _self_ towards that form. The wolf shape has served him well many times over, and it is well suited to long hunts.

Loki genuinely doesn't know what he looks like as he changes form. He knows it's quick; it doesn't hurt; it comes as naturally to him as walking, and he doesn't remember learning to do either.

Sitting on its haunches, the black wolf shakes itself and immediately sneezes at the stink of humans so close, burning fuel and sharp metal and sweat. The noise is hidden beneath the sound of an engine starting up nearby, and guards and drivers shouting back and forth to each other. The more complicated scents of the town beyond, and the soldiers' camp within, draw the wolf's attention, but Loki snaps it back towards his goal.

 _Towards the mountain._

And the wolf runs.

The ground beneath is new, but to a running wolf all ground is the same ground; parts of it here are not like parts of it elsewhere, but it is all the earth, and the earth falls away beneath his racing paws. It's joyful to run, to hunt and simply for the delight of running, easy and tireless and natural.

Tension coils down Loki's spine and is brushed away by the plume of the wolf's tail, waving steadily in his wake.

Every breath opens a wide and fascinating realm to him, the wolf's nose so much keener than his own, but the wolf's nose _is_ his own, for now. An entire landscape of scent unfolds before him. There are the trails of prey, some fresh and tempting, some old and fading, and the scents of other predators, sharp lynx-musk and the dark reek of bear and the tangy whiff of foxes.

The wolf pauses and drops its nose to the ground, snuffling at the tracks of a herd of goats that have passed this way, accompanied by a human, but Loki fights the instinct to turn and follow it, raising his head again and finding the mountain peak. All the colors are different, through wolf eyes, but the shape of it against the sky is clear.

A twitch of relief jolts through him as he leaves the human's track behind; neither half of his mind wants to risk encountering humans. The wolf's instincts remember being hunted, and Loki does not have time for mortals now, except for the one at the other end of his tracking spell.

 _Unease_ sits heavy in the wolf's belly, and as Loki allows himself to sink into its identity, pouring more of himself into the hunt, he finds himself unhappy about being a wolf alone.

Time after time, Loki fights the urge to break off from the line he's running and hunt, or to hide from the burning sun, and then to stop and howl, to call for his pack. The wolf's instincts rebel against the straight line, and so Loki allows his paws to stray, to find easier paths and more indirect slopes, and to back away from the den of a spider much larger than either half of his mind likes. He skirts around a tangle of low-growing, thorny brush only to retreat into its shadow, belly low, ears back, tail tucked beneath him, as something explodes in the distance.

Cowering, crouching, Loki-wolf scents the air and creeps out of hiding, ears swiveling to track the sound. But no second explosion follows, and he turns back to his course.

 _Lonely,_ the wolf's instincts protest, and a longing for company sweeps over him. Loki allows himself to think that he is going to find one of his pack, and makes himself believe it until the knowledge seeps into the wolf-half of his mind.

Placated and happier, the wolf races on.

It's pleasurable to run. Even humans know this, but the wolf glories in it. There's a melody and a pulse to it, a song in pawprints and panting. Loki loses himself in it, for a time.

After a while, he pulls himself back. He could get lost in a shape, he knows – it has happened to other shapeshifters. Some of them do not return.

But Loki knows who he is, even banished.

He is Loki, Prince of Asgard, and he is going home.

 _Home, home, home_ , the wolf mind pants happily, and turns it into thoughts of warm darkness and the scent of others, kin and mate and trusted companions, full belly and tired paws and comfort. It's a wide and all-encompassing feeling, not a single place but a range. All the wolf's territory is its kingdom, and its home.

It's growing dark when Loki reaches the crest of the mountain, padding the last few steps with his tongue lolling and tail wagging. The wolf is thirsty, and tired, but not hurting, and he's still alert.

He chews a stone out from between his pads, licks at the faint soreness, and shifts back.

For a moment Loki is disoriented – his own eyes are at a disadvantage in the falling dark – but he moves carefully, walking off the running trance as he surveys the land beyond the ridge.

More mountains. Less desert. So be it. He would expect no less of bandits, who must after all have _somewhere_ to hide.

He's unaware of the faint smile that lurks around his lips as he plans the next leg of his journey. In a strange way, he's happier than he's been since he was cast down. He has learned to blend in with Midgardians – mostly – but still he thinks like an Aesir prince. _This_ – setting out on a hunt to retrieve a companion – is something he understands, something that fits into his tradition-bound, martial world.

Loki sees nothing strange in the fact that he is in hostile territory, alone, with only his wits and his magic to aid him.

How else has he ever existed?

* * *

The wolf is quick, but this world is vast.

The black wolf had hunted among the mountain's folds and valleys and hidden crevasses, and Loki's more conscious mind had drawn back and let it follow its instincts as the body stalked and chased down and ate a grey and bony hare. As a wolf, he has no objection to eating it raw and bloody, cracking open bones and rooting through its carcass for the entrails, and besides, he has endured messier feasts in Asgard's halls…

He had hunted and dozed, resting invisible to men and gods alike, and when morning made its way to this part of the world, Loki had resumed his Aesir form to call up his tracker and set his course for the day.

Oftentimes the straight path tries to lead him over impassable ravines, or through mortal settlements hidden away within the mountains, far from the explosions that sometimes echo over the horizon, and so Loki alternates between shapes often, working his way carefully past such obstacles. He would make himself a hawk, but _flying_ in a straight line is near impossible across any great distance.

The magician stays away from humans, as much as he can. He doesn't know the people of this land. He would understand their words, for it is an innate magic of Asgard, that its people can speak and be understood in all languages, but he would not _understand_ them, the way they think, what they want, what they would fear, what they would expect of a stranger found in their midst…

After years, he still barely understands the people of Las Vegas much of the time.

But no matter. Unless they're holding Tony, he doesn't need them.

And for another day, the tracking spell leads him on.

* * *

All along his spine, black fur stands on end as a silent snarl bares fangs set on edge and ready to snap.

Loki-wolf crouches on a stone overlooking the ravine his silver thread guided him to, turning him about every time he passed by, and the two halves of his mind take in the camp of his enemies.

The wolf smells metal – fire – body-stink-sweat – meat – blood – stone – fear – smoke.

The prince sees steel – guns – salvage – gunpowder – chemicals – soldiers – guards – patrols – caves – hideout – and _so many weapons._

And so many of them are Tony's.

The wolf's eyes are not made for reading; they don't focus quite that way. But Loki has spent enough time in Tony's basement workshop and reading over his shoulder to recognize the Stark Industries logo on almost all the boxes and crates stacked under improvised canopies, hiding them from spying flights overhead.

That doesn't seem right, and Loki is briefly puzzled.

But these are bandits, and bandits steal. They have, after all, stolen Tony, and weapons in boxes are much easier to make off with than sarcastic, creative engineers who _never_ shut up and never give up, either. Who smile at Loki as if they might like him for more than his rank and his power, neither of which he currently has… Who don't believe in his magic but wonder at it nonetheless. Who swear and laugh their way through sex but whose hands and mouth on his body are the next best thing to worship.

Loki _will_ have that man back.

The snarl remains on his face as black wolf turns back into lanky, armored man, twisting fine-cut features into something genuinely nasty. There's less pain striking through the wolfthread now, but through it, this close – and he is, Loki knows by how sharply it rotates when he tries to step away – Loki can sense the echoes of immense tension and incredible focus.

He can cling to that, as he watches the camp and sizes up his enemies, tracking their movements and estimating how many people stand between him and his lover. If Tony can focus amidst his enemies, then Loki can push aside the memories evoked by the desert behind him, of being abandoned, outcast and rejected and scapegoated – it was _not_ his fault! – and his rage at having something of _his_ taken and almost within reach.

If Tony can work – the signal feels like _working_ , familiar from time spent by his lover's side as Tony happily takes something apart– then Loki can think and plan and be sure that he casts no shadow as the burning sun moves across where he sits, invisible, waiting and watching for the camp below to settle.

 _Some_ people – oh, Loki has someone in mind – would shout "Charge!" and charge, and believe that a plan.

Loki prefers to go at things a little more sideways.

* * *

The cave is much-lived in and oppressive, close and hot with mortal sweat and fear and anger, ringing with the sounds of a dozen different languages that come to Loki's ears as pieces of words. They speak of honor, of vengeance, of pride aggrieved and glories unearned, of violence once and future and imagined, and they speak of weapons. Again and again Loki hears the familiar word _Jericho_ – Tony does not keep his secrets as well as he believes he does, and if Loki had any interest in his lover's weapons, he could have learned far more. Once, he catches the name _Stark_ , spat from a tongue that finds the sounds unfamiliar, and a wolf's snarl builds in the magician's throat although he walks among them as a man, unseen still.

Tunnels wind away, and he remains wary of bandits emerging from the side passages that gape deeper into the mountain, but the wolfthread leads him true to a metal, heavy door set firmly into the rock.

It inches open reluctantly when Loki sets his hands to it, mind and magic brushing over the multiple locks and latches, the rusted point where the hinges long to scream, the dust of the much-disturbed earth, and all of them silent at his command. At the same time, Loki remembers the look of the door as it had been, and with a thought the opening door is hidden behind a semblance of the closed one.

Any watchers will see nothing, and there must be watchers, for he can sense the crackling of electricity, lightning tamed and gelded and pitiful, running among the stones, and can see for himself the flat black eyes of sentry cameras eager to carry tales to their masters.

And bandits do not leave their treasures unguarded.

Stepping lightly into the cave, Loki scans his battlefield.

Forge and anvil, hammer and tools, worktables and fire, hoists and cables – all combine to present a bastard, degraded cousin of the crudest smithy on Asgard, where the most traditional of the kingdom's smiths work as their unimaginably distant ancestors once did. It is a rough, harsh place, carved cruelly from the rock and pressed into service by the desperate who have nothing better within reach. Pieces of metal lie scattered from broken boxes, and the hot reek of melted, welded metal coats Loki's throat and tongue from the first breath.

Memories grate at Loki's awareness, and he bristles even as he shoves them back down – smithies have never treated him kindly, and it is a pretty irony that a smith may yet be his salvation.

He can make no sense of what is being built here, and he does not try, beyond a glance to ensure that there are no bandits lurking here on guard. His eyes are drawn immediately to the shape laid out on a crude cot; a strange light shines near him, and lines of weariness and pain crease his face, and he is nothing less than filthy, but Tony stirs in his sleep and tries to tug the meager, coarse rag he's using as a blanket more tightly over his body.

 _Alive, alive, alive!_

Relief roars through Loki like a storm, the force of it nearly knocking him back, and he sets a hand on the stone of the wall to steady himself. He barely remembers to close the real door behind him and dismiss the illusion before he's in motion, crossing the last few steps of a journey that has taken him across this world to find this man again.

Loki curses himself even as he does – he had not realized, he had not known how frightened he was for Tony, until he saw the mortal alive.

 _Stupid, stupid!_ part of him howls, jagged and bitter.

Against all his better instincts, he has gotten attached. But he cannot regret it now; some other time, when he has leisure. The camp of the enemy in the midst of a raid is no place to rake one's soul.

Weaving amidst the controlled chaos of the smithy, Loki pays no attention to the other cot, where a second and unfamiliar man, balding and small and almost fragile-seeming, sleeps. As he kneels at Tony's bedside, he has eyes only for his lover's face, lit up by –

What –

What is this? What has been done to Tony? _Who has hurt him so?_

Tony's disjointed, uncomfortable shifting has tugged the sackcloth away from his chest, baring a light ringed about by metal, with metal in its heart, bright blue and spitting with power held in check beneath the device's surface. And it is not merely resting there, worn like an ornament, as Loki had believed for a moment – it is set into his flesh as if it had grown there, but it is a bloody, violent growth.

Loki stares into this new, strange eye with bafflement, one hand reaching out to touch before pulling back. His mind has been wiped clean of all his plans and stratagems beneath its glare, and for several heartbeats he wonders at the light blankly, watching it rise and fall with Tony's pained breaths. When he recovers himself enough to brush the slightest wisp of his magic against it, like dabbling a finger into water to test its heat, he can sense the blazing power within its unexpected and mysterious presence, but still has no idea of its purpose.

This, he knows at least, must be the source of the pain that tore through them both, turning breath-thin spell to burning wire. Loki can imagine all too vividly the pain Tony, mortal and fragile, must have endured, to have metal set into his flesh, biting through the bone.

 _Oh, pet,_ he thinks, as he reaches out to wake his kidnapped lover, _what have they done to you? I will_ burn _them for this –_

And then he hesitates.

Because what then?

Tony knows nothing of Loki's true power, what he's capable of, who he is; he has answered every mention of the truth with laughter, and with praise for what he believes to be an excellent and extended jest. He has seen true magic and believed it trickery, and Loki has been content enough with this, for it suits Loki's purpose to keep Tony deceived.

Controlling what someone believes is, after all, the secret to controlling what they will do, and Loki _likes_ Tony – this, it seems, he must admit – but he does not trust him.

If he wakes Tony now, if he rescues his lover with magic and is seen to do so, then he betrays his own disguise. He will stand exposed with only the truth to wield, and the truth is not a weapon that sits easily in Loki's hands. He's found it a treacherous thing, truth, as ready to twist back upon him and bite as it is to stand meekly and do as it is told.

Loki has work for this man yet, but he _cannot_ risk Tony choosing not to do it, with truth in hand.

In Loki's experience, anyone who is going to help him must be tricked into doing so.

Biting at his lip and thinking furiously, Loki withdraws his hand and leaves Tony to sleep, turning away from the exhaustion and strain slicing into the mortal's face.

He cannot leave Tony here – to discard him now would achieve nothing, and it would sit ill with Loki, to abandon someone he's grown fond of, as he himself was abandoned – but the _risk_ , in acting…

Instead, he rises and takes in the smithy the bandits must have built for their captive, the fragments of weapons with cases labeled _Stark_ discarded against the walls, the processes that Loki – magician from a civilization so far beyond Midgard even its technology is like magic – has no name for, as Tony might struggle to create a blade from a core of flint.

Tony is working here, he can see, but Loki knows him well enough to doubt that he has been so readily subdued, to kneel at the feet of new masters.

Not _his_ Tony, who defies even his closest companions to do what he wants.

Loki can sympathize with that.

But he cannot read minds – there are some on Asgard, and elsewhere, who can, but it is not one of Loki's skills unaided – so he cannot merely pull Tony's secrets from his sleeping mind, nor even induce him to speak them aloud from swaddling dreams.

What he needs to know, most of all, is –

 _Tony, pet, can you save yourself from here without my aid?_

If Tony cannot, then Loki will act.

Until then, he steps away.

* * *

No one notices the mouse hiding itself within the stones in the corners of the cave, but the mouse listens intently to every word spoken, and when its nearsighted eyes fail, it can mark words of interest to match to later sights.

In this way Loki-mouse learns that the light is an _arc reactor_ ; he learns that it is keeping Tony alive and that it must never, ever be removed.

He learns that the bandits wish Tony, and the man who is _Yinsen_ , who is an ally of Tony's in secret, though he crouches and placates the _Ten Rings_ with promises and submission, to build weapons for them.

He is pleased indeed to learn that Tony intends to do nothing of the kind.

Loki watches this new aspect of his lover with fascination. There is a grim cast to Tony's features that was never there before, a determination emerging from the playfulness like diamond beneath a blast that scours all else away, and a fury as bright as the welding torch he brings to bear on something that is not his Jericho, for all he and Yinsen claim that it is.

Oh, he did not know that Tony could be _fierce._

Liar, trickster, opportunist, and defiant in his exile from his charmed life – the mouse's body is not large enough to contain the warmth that burns through its little heart, and Loki turns himself into one of the lynxes he'd scented in his wolf travels, the better to squeeze his cat eyes shut in a purr that goes unheard beneath the ring of metal and Tony's shouted commands, stubby tail lashing with delight.

The next night, as they sleep again, Loki treads carefully among the debris of their day, hunting for something that had rustled when referred to, as it was often, and finds many sheets of wax paper, innocently scattered about the room.

Loki is not stupid.

He gathers them up and flattens them together beneath the blinded eyes of the cameras, and very nearly gasps in pleasure at the deception.

Loki has lived all his life among warriors, and armor is something he understands; the shape outlined so carefully is brutal and crude, but so it must be, and it is a gloriously brutal dream of vengeance, to crush and punish and destroy.

 _Oh, pet,_ he thinks fondly, _you_ are _clever._

He puts the pages back where he found them, feeling absolutely no shame at his decision. He is no fine and prating knight, to ride to the rescue of his beloved, and Tony is no fluttering lady, helpless and needy, not with armor of his own coming together beneath his resourceful hands and the ignorant gazes of his enemies.

His choice was well-made, after all, to find someone so very near to matching him, crafty and cunning, and all is not lost.

Loki is a god among mortals, but he has faith in this man to get himself out of this darkness after all.

Even if he does scratch runes in a language no mortal speaks into a couple of tucked-away angles, and lay down lines of light that fade into the steel and are lost, blessings and wards and charms to protect the man who will soon wear them, before beginning his journey back with a smirk twisting his face.

He regrets only that he will not see the chaos that Tony's work will cause when his trap is sprung.

* * *

The goddamn arc reactor in his chest hurts, and he's often short of breath as his ribs and lungs complain about this intrusive new presence in their midst, but Tony holds on to that, deciding that they're _going_ to adapt, because he's going to get out of here and survive to complain about it.

Means he doesn't sleep very deeply.

Of course, there's also the fear of imminent death thing, so he usually wakes up a few times a night with his heart pounding in the hellish fire-lit darkness of his crude workshop in the depths of the Ten Rings' cave, hurting all over and expecting to see a gun barrel or burning coal a centimeter from his eye, or maybe that _fucking_ shrapnel bomb again. He dreams about that one almost every night, and tastes blood in his mouth again.

Instead, for once, Tony wakes with a kiss on his lips and the taste of his lover's mouth on his tongue, and the feeling of elegant, wanton hands across his face and over his heart, and the warmth of a presence at his side.

 _Coming home, Loki,_ he thinks, and goes back to sleep to try to find that much better dream again.

"You were smiling," Yinsen says the next morning. He sounds surprised. And weirdly pleased. "That's good."

"Yeah," Tony answers, smacking his hands together and eying up all the things that still need doing before he and Yinsen can kick these bastards' asses to the curb and get themselves gone. "Good dream. And I've got someone to get back to."

* * *

 _To be continued._


	7. Iron Man

ON WITH THE SHOW!

 **Chapter Seven: Iron Man**

"Vacation's over," he says to Pepper, waiting for him on the tarmac, trim silhouette perfect against the sun. Tony wants to frame her as Art, as Normalcy, as The World Going Right. Right there. Freeze that. Keep it forever in a place of honor.

He doesn't think she'll actually start crying, but he just couldn't deal with that, so best to head off the possibility right away. "Time to get back to work."

And there is work to do.

The sun's no brighter here on a completely safe California tarmac than it was over there, and here there's shade trees and the hum of the city just beyond, full of sandwiches and indoor plumbing and air conditioning and screwdrivers and cantaloupes and beer and Wi-Fi and chunky bead necklaces and traffic lights and grackles and highlighters and socks and, _god,_ people he trusts. But somehow, while Tony wasn't looking, someone came along and sharpened all the edges of things. It's all hyper-focused like he's tuned the zoom up a little too far, both more real than he's ever seen anything and _un_ real, somehow.

Tony can't stop looking at it all, like he's never seen any of it. It's too bright, but someone has taken away his sunglasses, and anyway, he doesn't want to _stop_ seeing any of it.

Rhodey had taken him to a forward post. Tony had been half-hallucinating and slipping in and out between this world and somewhere nice and cool and dark, and that was _before_ they put him on the hardcore antibiotics and the really good drugs that made everything very far away. Safely stowed and guarded in a bed with an IV drip in the arm that wasn't cradled defensively over his chest constantly, Tony had stared at the machine-stitched hem of the bedsheet for so long that one of the nurses had blinked a mini-flashlight at his eyes to test his reflexes, like she was afraid he was having a seizure.

Which is stupid, aren't blinking lights seizure- _inducing_?

No more of that. No more people standing over him looking worried, no more blood tests, no more IVs, no more funny hospital smell, no more pulse monitors tracking out the beats of a heart hovering over the edge of death –

Intellectually, he knows he can't feel the tiny, evil monsters hidden in his flesh, kept at bay by the electromagnetic field emitted by the larger monster that's set down roots right over his heart. The edges of it pull cruelly whenever he does anything particularly stressful like wake up gasping, body refusing to believe it's not being held down under metallic, blood-tinged water – they wouldn't waste _fresh_ on a prisoner, he'd realized cynically, groping about for something, anything to distract himself from the warring screams of _this can't be happening_ and _I don't want to die._ But they itch.

 _Never again_ , Tony promises himself. _No more. Not ever._

No one else has to live with this. No one else has to count down the last week of their life wondering which beat of their heart will kill them.

There is work to do.

"Are you kidding me?" he'd protested at the orderlies rolling a stretcher, an actual _stretcher_ towards the plane, which he walked off on his own feet, thanks very much, nothing worse showing than a couple of scratches and the sling holding up the arm he'd wrenched at some point. He'd been too caught up in the juggernaut around him and the rage burning through him like one of his own flamethrowers to notice at the time.

Good idea. Needs work.

But the sling is fine. It's another layer of fabric between the eyes of the world and the staring eye of Sauron _thing_ in his chest.

"Happy, take us to the hospital," Pepper tries to say once they've made it to the car.

Tony's so sick of hospitals. Doesn't anyone understand that he has work to do? Past time they did. "No," he cuts her off. "Happy, no. I'm not – I'm not going to the hospital, Pepper, I'm fine. They patched me up, and I want to go home, and before I do that, I want two things." He reconsiders. "No. Three."

Pepper looks skeptical. So much for the tears. Missed his chance.

"One, I want an American-style cheeseburger." _God,_ the things he would have done for a cheeseburger, if any of the nurses had been willing, would have put Klondike bars to shame.

Military discipline sucks. Or _not_ , as it was.

"Two –"

"Oh, no," Pepper interrupts him this time. He can only imagine what's running through her head. She knows him too well. Or she did.

She may not know him anymore.

Does _he_ know him anymore?

" _Two_ ," he says louder, "I want you to call for a press conference."

That was not what Pepper was expecting, but she's reaching for her phone even as her brow furrows, squashing neat eyebrows together. "Now?"

"Yes, now. Almost now. Cheeseburgers first. Hogan, drive."

Happy looks almost as skeptical – his boss is acting crazier than usual – but finally gets the car moving.

 _Cars._ Tony missed cars. Nice, sleek, spoiled-rotten but still powerful cars that are not and have never wanted to be anything even resembling, or in the same time zone as, a Humvee. He sinks back into the seat and smiles, patting the smooth leather and feeling it hum under his hand. Lovely.

Pepper's on the phone to whatever branch of her public relations team does the scut work of calling reporters, or posting stuff to Twitter, or whatever it is they actually do, so Tony hums along with the car for a few more seconds, until she hangs up.

"And three," he says, opening one eye and turning one hand up, waving it in Pepper's direction, "gimme my phone. I gotta make a call. Please tell me somebody called Loki. _Please._ "

Because everything's about to go even further to hell, and he's been blown up and abducted and tortured by terrorists who _took his stuff_ and forced to build missiles for said terrorists, and he's watched a friend he owed his life to die, and he's seen _kids_ die, and he's _killed_ people, and that was only the lowlights of the past _three goddamn months,_ and he wants all for himself the five minutes, tops, it's going to take to find a fast-food joint next to a major airport.

He doesn't miss Pepper's tiny smile as she fishes around in her tiny, streamlined, efficient, probably very stylish purse and extracts a phone. "I called him," she said softly. "As soon as Rhodey called me. I left messages, when he stopped answering, even when I didn't have anything new to tell him."

"He does that," Tony says, needlessly, just to say words. From the driver's seat, Happy snorts. They've only met in passing, but Happy isn't dumb, and he's a friend, and to his credit, he didn't even bother with the shovel speech, just shrugged and accepted that his boss might have this guy around every so often.

The phone's smooth and new and cool, just a tinge of warmth from Pepper's hand left over, and Tony wraps his around it like a lifeline.

"He's at the house." Pepper doesn't look him in the eye, but her lips are soft and just a bit curved rather than tight and disapproving. "I thought you might want him there."

"You're the best, Pep."

"Call your boyfriend, Mr. Stark."

"He's not my boyfriend," Tony says reflexively, and isn't at all surprised to see that the screen reopens on a number ready to dial.

The surprising thing is that the call is actually picked up.

" _Tony."_

Loki's voice is still low and cool and British, but maybe there's a tiny hint of relief in what is not a question.

"Holy shit," Tony blurts. "You answered your phone. So that's what it takes."

" _There you are. I was… I knew you'd come back. But it is…I'm pleased to hear your voice again."_

"Not getting rid of me that easily." There are so many things he wants to say, and he doesn't even know what any of them are; for once in his life the Incredible Brain has come up blank and just wants to listen to the voice on the other end of the line breathe. _I missed you? I dreamed about you? Stay right there and don't move, I'm coming home, I just want to see you?_

 _I broke something, Loki. I broke something big. And I don't think I can run away to Vegas to escape it._

One of those, maybe. He doesn't have time to say anything real over the phone. Even with airport traffic, any second now there will be cheeseburgers, and if he's going to talk to Loki with his mouth full, he wants to do so in person so he can at least _see_ the scathing glare doing that earns him every time. Never thought he'd want to see that one. "You're at the house, right?"

" _Ms. Potts called. JARVIS let me in."_

"Oh, so you'll answer when Pepper calls you? What the hell, man? Never mind. Stay right there, okay? Promise me?" He's never asked that before, but today, of all days, maybe Loki will indulge him.

He can almost hear the smile. _"Okay."_

Tony really missed the way Loki says that, like it's a loaner word from a foreign language.

"I'm coming home, I'll see you soon. Got to make a couple of stops first. Oh, and hey, turn on the TV, will you? I'm going to say things in front of cameras, you heard it here."

Across the car seat, Pepper's head comes up sharply, but now it's Tony's turn to not meet her eyes. She'll find out when everyone does, because if anyone finds out someone will try to stop him, and that's not happening. It's just _not._

How could he have thought anything else was important?

" _I will see you first, then,"_ says Loki.

"Hah. Whoops, drive-thru lane. Gotta go," and Tony hangs up before he has to explain, or before he says something like _good, I want you there, coming home means just that much more knowing you're there_.

Pepper's just the best. How did she know?

* * *

The press conference goes about as well as can be expected.

It's not the first press conference he's had to be escorted out of by bodyguards, but this is a particularly bad one, and just to make matters worse, Obie gives up on trying to get control of the room, abandons the podium, and chases Tony all the way to the main factory where the full-size arc reactor sparks and thrums to itself.

"That went well. What happened in there, Tony?" Obie says disapprovingly, resting a hand on his shoulder. "You're not well. You should be in hospital –"

What _is_ it with people and trying to take him to hospital? Does he honestly look that bad? Then they should let him go home, so he can take a shower – or maybe a bath, water on his face might be…not good – and put on some fresher clothes and maybe sleep for a week, maybe with company, because it's surprisingly nice having Loki asleep on the other side of the bed. The body warmth is great and unlike some people Tony's brought home, the man doesn't snore. And waking him up can be a lot of fun.

"I'm fine," Tony says – that's Big Lie Number Two, after "I see" but before "I have read and agreed to the terms and conditions" – "and I'm serious. I don't care what it does to the stock options. I don't care if we've always made weapons. I don't care if it's Dad's legacy. It's not going to be mine anymore. We're done, Obie. No more weapons."

"So, what, you want us to make baby bottles?"

The arc reactor pulses. The thing in his chest hums in harmony. He can feel it, this close, like his bones are vibrating along with it.

Just to make Obie stop, he talks about arc reactor technology.

They fence back and forth for a few seconds, but someone tipped his mentor off about the miniature chunk of compact power buried in his chest. Either Rhodey or Pepper is going to hear about that little indiscretion forever, and Tony covers it back up and pulls away from the arm thrown over his shoulders as Obie reminds him that they're a team and that Tony should trust him.

"Let me handle this," he wheedles.

Tony shakes his head, persisting. "I'm done making things that kill people. We'll go to the moon instead, or Mars, how about Mars?"

"Tony, this isn't one of your space games –"

"You know, you're right." He's still got one arm folded across his chest protectively, sling or not, but his other hand comes up between them, prodding a finger into Obie's face. He doesn't want to fight with his mentor, but why can't Obie trust him to know what he's talking about?

What the hell does Obie know, safely over here? Why won't he listen?

God, why hadn't _he_ ever listened?

Why can't Obie just be happy for him, then?

"It's not a game. And I don't want to fight. I'm done fighting. We'll talk about this later. I'm going home."

Obie sighs, steps away, lets him go. Runs a hand over his head and grinds his teeth without even the cigar in the way, like he does when he's frustrated, when he's giving up for now but the problem had _better_ be fixed by the time he looks at it again. "Good. Go home, Tony. And stay there for now, all right? Just lie low for a while. Rest. Don't talk to the media, don't talk to anyone. Let me handle this…new direction of yours. Find a way to spin it, see what we can do."

"There's not a spin," Tony insists, glaring at the security guard who's standing between him and the door. She moves aside. "No. More. Weapons. And that's final."

He's actually halfway out the door – Happy's squashing out his cigarette and reaching for the car door – when Obie calls out to him. "Tony."

"What." Tony can hear how flat his voice is, but he's just so done with today.

"While you're at it? Get rid of that flash boyfriend of yours."

Something in his chest skips a beat, metal shifts, everything sways and goes dark, _shock_ raw and merciless tearing through him, and Tony flinches, every centimeter of his skin prickling. For a second he's up to his ribcage in sand, trying to tear battered plates of warped metal away from his body, fighting to escape something that's crunched tight around him, biting and betraying him in the end. The unforgiving sun blazes down, hunting for soft, fragile, newly exposed flesh, hungry to _burn_ him the way the Ten Rings burned…

No, no, this is California, not Afghanistan, Afghanistan is _over._ And yet somehow, the fire… "What?"

"C'mon, Tony, really?" Obie sighs, shaking his bald head.

All the breath has been knocked out of him – _Obie knows!_ – and yet somehow Tony's still talking, answering on reflex even if it's a stutter. "I – you know about – and he's not my boyfriend, he's just…I can't have friends now?"

"Now, don't be like that," his mentor scolds him. The engineers who work here, who have been staring at him from a betrayed distance and pretending they aren't, look discreetly elsewhere, as if the walls might have something fascinating installed in them – well, they do – like they can't hear their employers arguing, like the secret Tony's been hiding hasn't just been dragged out into the light, not kicking and screaming but paralyzed and helpless.

"The press is going to be all over you, and you need to be careful. You just upset a lot of people, Tony, and they're going to be looking for anything, _anything,_ to drag you down and make you look bad. And your…friend? You know what that looks like? Not good."

Obie smiles reassuringly. "I'm just thinking of you, my boy."

Tony's not reassured.

* * *

Hello, house.

Hello, glass patio and bar. Hello, staircase. Hello, waterfall.

Hello, midnight snack pilot light glowing from under the snack bar.

Hello, JARVIS.

" _Welcome home, sir."_

Hello, switched on but muted television, shifting light flickering across the darkened front room. Hello, freeze frame of press conference that makes him look like a refugee from Arkham or Bedlam or one of those -am places, anyway, and that he's probably going to be seeing a lot in the near future. Super.

Hello, scattered migratory pile of epically improbable fantasy novels and historical commentaries, paperbacks using each other as bookmarks and left face-down, ancient and cracked spines sagging dispiritedly. Hello, mostly empty bottle of blood-rich wine that he'd cadged a sip of once with fantastically lewd bribery, and then spent an intoxicated weekend being driven to wine tastings trying to find another bottle of. Leave it to his haughty magician to pick something obscure and sinfully dark as his drink of choice.

Hello, lapidary grinder that masses a ridiculous amount and so usually lives in the downstairs workshop, off in a corner somewhere ever since the last long-forgotten project he'd used it for.

Hello, built-in flexible spotlight, dust motes trapped in its glaring beam, picked out from the rest of the room.

Hello, bright green eyes flicking up to notice him, then back to the intricate puzzle in carved metal and mesh spread out across the towel draped across his lap.

Tony's not good at words sometimes.

Barefoot, shoes and washed-but-secondhand socks discarded somewhere after the front door had closed, he shuffles across the room and successfully evades the edge of the table this time, sparing his shins. He callously evicts a cushion, tossing it across the room in a halfhearted throw that barely makes it over the arm of the couch, and flops down in its place, closing his eyes.

He lies there silently for a minute or two, listening to the soft _click_ of metal against stone and his own breathing until it steadies out, trying to drink in the sense of peace, of _rightness_ in the room, like he can hold it inside and keep it, a warmer bubble than the electromagnetic field guarding his heart. Somewhere quiet he can go, if he can just fix it in his mind firmly enough, because everything else is wrong.

When he cracks open one eye just a little way, he catches Loki glancing away from him, a bit of a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

"Whatcha making?" he asks finally, as if this were an ordinary evening, as if he had nothing more important on his mind than bugging Loki about his magic tricks and trying to decide where to order takeout from this time.

"You're familiar with laser light shows, I imagine?"

"'course."

"This will be like that, eventually. But without the lasers. Or the dust in the air."

"Huh." Tony considers. "How'd you get the gem cutter up here?"

"I moved it," Loki deadpans.

"It's a goddamn pain to move."

"Not as much as some things. And I needed it."

"Yeah? What for? …did you just snap your fingers at me?" Tony opens his eyes and tries to glare. It probably doesn't come out as much.

"Only once." The twisty little smile is not an apology. "Here."

Reflexively, Tony puts his free hand up and catches what isn't an icosahedron, but only because it has too many sides. He briefly tries to count them, but it's too dark and there are too many and he doesn't feel like figuring out what the pseudo-Greek name for it might be. When he rolls it across his fingers, tiny etchings scratch at his skin, scored across the gemstone's surfaces, almost too small to see as if Loki's tried to etch circuitry into it and maybe succeeded.

It's just the right size to look through, like a glass eye, and Tony lets it break the world into facets. "Shiny."

Loki makes no move to take it back, and Tony puts in the effort to shift, wincing as he turns – he's wearing bruises, still – and sets his spine against the magician's side. "Hi," he says, looking up.

"Hi," Loki says back, amused and wry.

There's nothing else to say – there's everything else to say – so Tony doesn't say it. He just wants to stay here, maybe forever.

But he can't, because there's work to do.

He's taken by surprise when Loki sweeps up the pieces of his device, wrapping the towel around them and depositing it all on the table in a single gesture that quite naturally becomes twisting sideways to wrap his arms around Tony's body and press a kiss into his hair. "Don't do that again," the magician commands, but it's soft enough to sound like a plea.

And that's different, because what they have is fun – what they _had_ was fun – but now even this has changed. Now he's broken, and he's hurting someone who's gotten closer to him than anyone has in a very long time, and just _everything_ he touches has been ruined now.

Something halfway between a laugh and a sob comes boiling out of Tony's chest, where it's been trapped behind the arc reactor to die and rot. "Oh, really? 'cause I was thinking of making it a regular – ow! Did you just _bite_ me?"

"Not funny, Tony," Loki growls, releasing his ear with the slightest kitten-lick to kiss it better, but the arm wrapped around his splinted one runs caresses up and down his chest, and too late, Tony drops the gemstone and tries to push him away –

Loki's hand freezes on the curve of metal beneath the battered dress shirt; he's just caught the edge of the reactor, and he's gone very, very still.

"What is this?" he asks.

"No," Tony protests, cringing, that fleeting bubble of comfort and security leaking like a balloon, jetting away at random and impossible to catch. "No, don't – please, I don't want –"

He can feel his lover breathing against his temple. "Tell me."

Black bile seethes in his throat, shame and disgust swamping him at the thought of Loki's eyes on the reactor, even though an entire troop of military doctors and nurses and orderlies, and Rhodey, and Obie, have already seen what those _fuckers_ did to him, what he had to do to himself to salvage his life from the scrap metal they turned him into. That _he_ turned himself into, _his_ company made that missile, one of _his_ people dreamed up something so evil and thought that was a good idea, and it's _his own damn fault_ he's got a hole in his chest he could almost fit his hand into before he shoved a science fair project with delusions of grandeur in there. He's broken, he's maimed, like the Borg swooped down and didn't bother to carry him off and left him half-machine, and the wound goes deeper than the chunks it took out of his ribcage.

How can he possibly let _anyone_ see that, much less his lover? Why would Loki want anything to do with him, once he sees the wasteland the Ten Rings made of Tony; why wouldn't he leave and go find someone as beautiful as he is, someone _whole?_

Panic sweeps over him, and suddenly all Tony wants is to get away, just as much as he'd wanted to be here, but when he struggles, tries to push Loki away, tries to run, the magician holds him still. He might as well try to move the gem cutter back downstairs on his own with his bare hands as break the grip pinning him in place, but he can't think, he can't breathe, he can't _stop –_

"Tony." The voice in his ear is barely more than a breath. "Hush, pet. It's all right. You're safe."

"No, I –" he chokes out. "Lemme go –"

"I will _not,_ " Loki says, and that mildly peeved tone is perhaps more familiar than anything else – Tony has heard that particular note in the magician's voice a hundred times, at some petty bit of Las Vegas gossip dismissed scornfully, or some senseless quirk of modern society, or silly plot holes in sillier fantasy books, or people who take apart his magic tricks and then come crying to him that they don't work. It's familiar. It's a thread Tony can catch, can tug on, can follow out of his labyrinth with that monster in the depths. "Fight me if you must. Do tell me, when you're done."

"…bite you…" Tony manages.

"Do that," the magician says calmly, and sets his chin on Tony's skull, and, Tony's willing to bet, stares into space regally while Tony drags himself back to something resembling calm.

He really is unfairly strong. Tony's not going anywhere, and weirdly, once he accepts that, it helps.

When he tunes back in, he realizes Loki is talking, quietly, as if to himself.

"…and sometimes you _can't_ fix what you broke, believe me, I know. Sometimes all you can do is stop it from breaking any further, and it's running and running just to stay in one place –"

"No," Tony says, grasping for something he recognizes, "that's the Red Queen, and you're the Cheshire Cat, I already decided –"

"Shut up, I'm only going to say this once, because I like you, and I don't like many people. I know everything's new and different and wrong and it hurts, it _hurts._ But you walked out of the desert, pet, and once you've done that, you've won. You'll build it again and you'll make it better so you can spit in their eye and say to the void with you all."

"That experience talking?"

"And why should I tell you my secrets, when you will not share yours?"

That's so unfair it jolts Tony back to life like a set of shock paddles. "Hang on, you are _all_ secrets, I don't think I've ever gotten a real answer out of you since we met."

Loki hums thoughtfully. "So, I am the one with secrets, and you are not?"

"Yes. Wait. What?"

The kiss to his temple is _almost_ worth the triumphant chuckle. "Then tell me, pet."

"Not sure why I let you call me that," Tony grumbles – he knows the answer is _I can't stop you,_ and he can't even retaliate, because, as Loki never tires of reminding him, they have a deal.

"The deal sucks," Tony had said at one point, honest-to-god batting his eyelashes at his lover as he climbed into his lap. "But then again, so do I. We could renegotiate," and Loki had laughed that shameless, wicked laugh of his.

Tony almost remembers being that carefree.

"I…fine."

This time, when he tries to sit up, Loki lets him go, lets Tony turn around and face him, even if he doesn't quite look at his magician as he works his free hand through the shirt buttons and pulls the fabric aside.

Too-blue light washes out Loki's face, turns him into a ghost. Carefully, he slides his hands over Tony's, opens the buttons all the way and looks.

What he thinks of it, Tony can't tell; he's gone as still as he ever was, as they circled each other and flirted an adventure at a time.

"There's…shrapnel, in my veins." His voice is leaden, dead. "Tiny, too tiny to find. This – it's an electromagnet, only super-advanced. It's a power source, I…I have some ideas. But it's keeping that shit out of my heart. And I get to live a little longer."

Loki is stone-still for another moment, and then he rests one hand over the glaring eye of the reactor fearlessly, not a flicker of disgust on his face as he looks up.

"I'll kill them," he promises, almost casually, but he sounds like he means it. Like he could. Like he could hunt down fanatic, violent, heavily-armed terrorists that the entire U.S. Armed Forces couldn't find in the uncharted mountains of Afghanistan, and return. "I'll burn them for you, if you ask it of me. I am…not without resources."

Something thumps in Tony's heart; it's not the shrapnel. "No need," he chokes out. "I – I already did."

His magician's face is suddenly unutterably sad. "Ah," he says only, and then, "…welcome to war, dear one."

* * *

Tony's not sleeping. He might dream, and anyway, he can't stop thinking.

He's staring into the near-darkness, with the arc reactor buried beneath the thickest shirt he owns that he can actually sleep in. He's going to miss sleeping naked. And being able to lie on his front without the pressure of the reactor casing against his ribs.

And this.

Loki's asleep beside him, long hair fanned out across bare shoulders, breathing slow and even, the hand visible above the covers loose and open. He's like a cat, that man. Refuses to get anywhere near wherever Tony's trying to get him to, just to be contrary, but once he's there, it's his. From experience, Tony knows that if he stares too long, Loki _will_ wake up, like he can feel eyes on him somehow even in the depths of sleep. So instead Tony is only looking in glances, and out of the corner of his eye, just taking his lover in with the rest of the room that's his, that's home, in every centimeter of it.

There's a sliver of moonlight outside; Tony can just barely make out the crests of the waves, or maybe he's imagining it.

He wants to stay. He wants to keep this.

But he can't.

There is _work_ to do.

* * *

He's just inputting the specs emerging from those first scribbled pages – he'd managed to keep most of them, locked into the crude armor with him and folded into the lining of his pants as he crossed the desert – all his attention on JARVIS as the AI starts converting drawn lines to motion-capture holograms, and he doesn't hear the door to the lab unlock and open and close again.

So he jumps when he looks up and finds Loki standing beside him, just over his shoulder, hands folded neatly behind his back as he looks curiously at the wireframe being taken apart and coming back together, Tony's imagination and his desperation unfolding shining in mid-air.

"Morning," Tony says hurriedly, grabbing for his cup of coffee and gulping it down, fortifying himself. He's going to need the caffeine.

"So it is. What is this?"

"Work. You saw the press conference."

"I did." Loki grins. "You certainly can make a scene, pet."

Tony points a stylus at him. "And I meant it. No more weapons. But the –" he hesitates, powers through. "– people – who took me, who did this to me," as he thumbs at the arc reactor, visible through today's slob clothes, "they had my weapons. And that means someone's taking my stuff. If I have one rule, it's _don't take my stuff._ You should understand that."

"Oh, certainly." The magician tips his head to one side, following the lines of the wireframe model and taking in the Mark II label in the upper right-hand corner.

"So I'm going to find my weapons, and I'm going to destroy them, and this –" He points at the revised design for the power armor, or at least what he's got so far. "– is going to make it possible."

Loki nods absently and looks down at him. "And this, this isn't a weapon, as you count such things?"

Damn the man. On top of everything else, he's learned to read Tony's engineering shorthand. Or he's a really good guesser. Magician, after all.

"It's what I used to escape," Tony says grimly. "It's gonna be better. And no. Because it's mine, and no one else will touch it." He taps the stylus against the reactor. A little more comfortable with it, this morning. Might as well enjoy that while it lasts. "And it runs off this, and right now, this is the only one there is. Anyone else, this'll be just a pile of metal."

Loki all but purrs, "Ingenious. Fearsome and beautiful. So you build this, and then, what next?"

The coffee solidifies in his gut, freezes solid, sends little shards of ice into his veins to match the metal lurking around in there, and Tony feels the pit open up beneath him, waiting for his word.

And the word is, "No."

From the other side of the projection, where he'd prowled a few steps away, Loki stops dead. Stares at him, puzzled, and Tony very nearly raises a hand to check that the reactor's still there, still lit, because _something_ hurts in there. "What?"

But there is work to do.

"You should go," Tony says. His voice doesn't sound like his.

It's so, so rare that he can genuinely baffle Loki, but Tony's not enjoying the look on the magician's face as he turns the words over – small words, but as tiny and lethal as shrapnel, and as inextricable. He's said them. There's no taking them back. He wishes he could, but he can't.

And he shouldn't.

It hurts, but it has to be done.

"…what did you just say to me?" says Loki, finally.

Tony looks fixedly at the wireframe Mark II. Concentrate on what's important. On what matters most. On what needs to be done to set things right.

"I've got work to do," he says, words flat and hard and as emotionless as he can make them. "And I…I don't deserve to have nice things anymore. Not after what I've seen. What I've done. What's been done, because of me, because I was too busy being an idiot and fooling around to worry about the damage I was doing. Maybe I never did. And I don't deserve you. I can't – I just can't do this right now."

This, right here, is why he doesn't do relationships. Because they always end up here. This is why he sleeps with people he doesn't care about, who don't care about him, just for the fun and the stupid animal pleasure, and then sends Pepper to kick them out the next morning before they've even eaten breakfast while he hides in his work.

So he doesn't have to do this. So no one ever gets close enough that it hurts to tear them out in the inevitable end.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Loki set his hands on the table, fingers crooked as if they could tear through like claws. Not stupid, not at all stupid, someone who lives by implication and illusion, he doesn't bother misinterpreting what Tony's trying not to say outright. "Are you _serious?_ " he demands.

Against his will, Tony slams his own hands down on the table. The coffee mug shudders, bitter dregs sloshing unevenly. "Why do people keep asking me that? Yes, I'm –"

He takes a deep breath. Tries not to look at the man he's hurting, because if he ever doubted that Loki does care for him, in some strange, amused way, that soft voice murmuring in his ear last night as he panicked dismissed all doubts. "Look, Loki, it's not safe for you here. I don't want you caught in the crossfire."

Something deep inside him whimpers, cries out, wails that he's being stupid, that he's letting Obie bully him into being what Obie and everyone thinks he should be rather than what he wants to be, but it's a voice that's been squashed so often it's almost reflexive to smash it down again and lock it away. Obie's right. Tony's breaking everything, even if he's trying to fix it, and Loki shouldn't have to be caught up in it as well. He has no idea what the media are like, how easily a ruined reputation, even a moment caught in the klieg light of public opinion, can destroy a life.

"I can look after myself," Loki snaps curtly, words bitten off, accent whipping at the heels of the words with a crack.

 _Silvertongue,_ a man with his own squad of thugs challenges, on a half-lit side street, and a knife all but materializes in Loki's ready hand.

But this is different.

"Oh, but say what you mean, Stark," he snarls, and something inside Tony turns to ash. "You don't want me here. You don't want me anymore."

Tony stares at him, drinks him in; even furious Loki's beautiful, maybe even more so, but he can't afford to burn himself out against that, not when there's work to do.

"No, Loki, I…" he denies.

And stops. Gives up.

"…yeah. You should go."

Years trawling through Sin City together, Tony running his mouth every chance he got, and months as lovers, and Tony's never seen Loki _blush_ before. Every off-color comment and lewd suggestion and gasped-out praise and curse, and until today he's never seen color rise across those razor cheekbones aside from sheer physical exertion.

 _Fury_ bleeds into the marble planes of his face, now, and Loki bares his teeth in a snarl, bitter and hurting, an animal struck.

"…you're sending me away," he manages, and oh, Tony never wanted to hear _betrayal_ in his voice. " _You_ are sending _me_ – after everything –" For a moment he's incoherent with disbelief and humiliation, and as he draws himself up into something untouchable and closed-off and wounded, Tony wants to sink into the floor and die.

But there's work to do.

When Loki speaks again it's a hiss, a sneer. "I was afraid for you," he spits. "I hurt for you. I don't like most people, I _hate_ this world, but I thought you… I thought I could trust you. I wanted to – Well."

He snorts, looks away. "Forget it. You're no different after all. I should have known better."

Tony has to clench his hands into fists to stop himself from reaching out as Loki stalks past him, every step a strike at his battered heart. Instead, he sinks into his chair and grinds those fists against his forehead, elbows propped on the table casting the Mark II into the air like a dream.

He can't. _He can't._

"Do what you want," Loki damns him, and slams the lab door in his wake.

* * *

Sooner or later, Tony's going to find a limit to how much he can hurt.

One more thing to fix. Somehow.

Until then, he goes back to work.

* * *

First, power.

Pepper almost kills him, but it's not her fault. He probably should have explained all the details to her first, rather than just telling her the bits he thought she needed to know a bit at a time.

…nah. Then she probably wouldn't have done it, and he needed her to.

She really _is_ as capable and qualified and trustworthy as he'd called her, but plugging miniature generators into her boss's chest isn't what she signed up for, and he manages a grin for her as his heartrate gets back to normal.

The brand-new arc reactor, securely wired up, glows, and Tony rotates it fully into place musingly. This one's better. It's cleaner. It's not made out of spare parts scrounged out of stolen weapons and hammered into shape on an anvil out of the Middle Ages. There's no blood on it.

"You okay?"

"Don't ever, ever, ever, ever ask me to do anything like that ever again," Pepper orders him sternly, hands held up before her like she wants to remove them and send them to the dry cleaner. He probably should have had her take off her watch, at least.

"I don't have anyone but you," says Tony, grimacing.

Pepper gives him a totally deadpan look. "Well," she says dryly, "perhaps you shouldn't have broken up with your boyfriend, then."

"He's not my boyfriend," Tony's mouth says, on full autopilot, as he peels the sensor contacts off his skin. "And we haven't broken up, we're just…I'm busy. Who the hell told you, anyway? You know, forget it. Can we not talk about this? Ever? I've really got to focus right now."

He suspects only Pepper's long-established tradition of not criticizing his love life, no matter the form it takes, no matter what kind of fool he's made of himself this time, keeps her from saying something more than a noncommittal, "What do you want me to do with this?"

Tony glances at the original arc reactor. "That? Destroy it. Incinerate it."

"You don't want to keep it?"

"Pepper, I've been called many things. _Nostalgic_ is not one of them."

Which is why he can't afford to think about anything else but the schematics building themselves into a masterpiece in his private server. Why he tells Butterfingers to toss his phone in the garbage along with all the rest of the crap on his desk.

Work to do.

He doesn't have time to play.

* * *

He throws himself into the Mark II and doesn't look back for weeks on end, his days becoming a rapid-fire sequence of welds and tests and rewiring and debugging circuits and sculpting in the super-advanced CAD program he rewrote for JARVIS and the basement lab. He reads a ton of research papers on metallurgy and bleeding-edge theories in microcircuitry and miniaturization. He mouths off at the bots and drinks so much coffee that the machine – no fancy espresso stuff down here, this is the next best thing to paint stripper – can't keep up with him.

He scavenges a backup coffee machine from upstairs while JARVIS processes a new render and has a brief moment of probably-caffeine-induced insanity when he can't find a spare outlet to plug it into.

He runs gears and pistons and tiny, tiny reciprocators through their paces and has to build smaller ones anyway. He catches one finger in a particularly snappy socket and mutters curses for the next five minutes until a static charge buildup problem distracts him; three hours later he remembers, and by then the minor pain is long gone.

He gets used to the blue light over his heart, to the point where he can ignore it, because when he's working he doesn't have to think.

Work like this is what Tony's _for_.

The first test with the repulsors turned flight stabilizers could have gone better. Tony kind of regrets getting that on video. Even if he deletes it – which he won't, because documentation, because _science_ , yeah! – JARVIS would keep a copy somewhere.

He tries not to imagine a certain lanky, slender magician sprawled out in the two-seater sports car, boots lolling over the side, laughing hysterically at what should, by all rights, be an imprint of Tony's face in the concrete ceiling.

But it's a concept.

And bringing it to life, now that it's his, now that it's by choice, now that he's working in his own lab with his own materials and the bots peering over his shoulder like pigeons, now that he's _making_ and not destroying –

It's glorious.

Tony loses himself in building the best thing he's ever come up with, _ever_ , and for a while he's entirely happy.

And yeah, so he blows up some stuff.

He's lost his belief that the world is a fair place. He's lost his ability to sleep through the night or without a light on somewhere. He's lost a chunk of his ribcage and, probably, most of his remaining life span. He's lost his best friend, since Rhodey isn't speaking to him anymore. He's lost his lover, since Loki will probably never forgive him. He's lost the trust and respect of the literally tens of thousands of people whose jobs he endangered when he got up in front of those cameras and said _no more weapons,_ and tanked the stock price, too. And from what Obie tells him, he's about to lose his own company to the damn Board of Directors.

He can have blowing stuff up.

* * *

Also, the Mark II turns out beautiful, and Tony learns to fly, just him and his tech and the open sky and _speed_.

 _That_ is the best thing…

Ever.

Despite the bruises, and the icing problem, and the new hole in the house.

* * *

Beating the shit out of the remnants of the Ten Rings, burning them out of Gulmira – how dare they, _how dare they?_ – almost starts to make up for finding out that he's even more of an idiot than he thought.

That Obie has been working against him for…how long now?

Dark suspicions begin to unfold even as he takes the new red-and-gold armor into battle, only this time, he's ready for it.

 _Welcome to war, dear one,_ Loki's voice whispers, just a memory.

Bullets zing past him, and he storms through them, untouched, hearing them glance off the gold-titanium alloy and barely leaving a mark. Within the armor, Tony's unstoppable, implacable, no longer the helpless, _stupid_ spoiled brat who'd jaunted into a war zone with a bottle of whiskey in one hand and a shiny phone in the other and bite marks still dusted across his collarbones, but something closer to a god.

Or at the very least, a glorious and high-tech golem.

He can't imagine what these murdering bastards think has come for them, bringing justice down on their heads for everything they've done and everything Tony didn't lose but that _they took_ from him. Not that he spends more than half a second wondering about it. He lashes out for everyone they've hurt and killed and stole from, everyone who _doesn't_ have the resources Tony does, who wasn't as lucky as he's been.

Tony Stark has been in the weapons business all his life, but only now is he fighting back. He's not going to be a victim any more.

 _Never again. Never again. Never, never,_ burns in the back of his mind.

And it's…good. He fights like it's natural, like he knows what he's doing; the armor makes him think _fight_ as much as _flight_ , and those perfectly paired functions spin together into something stronger than both. The suit exaggerates his movements to a degree he could only have dreamed of, except he's taken those dreams and brought them to life; with every leap, he soars. Not a step out of place or off balance, he has only to point or gesture and _his will_ is done, and he's invincible.

And every time Tony thinks it can't feel any better, something savage within him roaring flamethrower-powerful, it does. There's the satisfaction of his beautiful, beautiful technology, still handling like a dream, repulsors flaring against his palms, putting down every goddamn terrorist who tries to stand in his way.

There's the pure, bitter delight of taking out the idiots who try to fall back on their now totally obsolete tactic of taking hostages, because Tony was ready for that. Tony thought of that. Stark Industries designed the best targeting computer on the planet, and _then_ Tony got his hands on it and ported JARVIS into it and built it into his armor.

There's the tears running down that man's face as he holds his son, and there's the awe in the kid's eyes as he looks up at the warrior striding past, triumphant and unafraid.

Tony's always enjoyed the way people look at him, but that kid's eyes are exponentially more real than any vapid fan or A-list celebrity hanger-on or hidebound business shark.

These people are alive because of him.

That means something.

Plus, the _fear_ on the husky, self-satisfied leader's face as his former victims close in…that's justice.

Bullets, missiles, even a _tank_ can't stop this wonder he's built, that fits around him like a second skin and makes him strong enough to start setting things right.

Bring it on.

This is his battle, his mission, and while he's fighting it, he's not afraid and he doesn't hurt anymore.

* * *

And then it all goes horribly wrong.

Pepper's voice over the phone, dismayed and frightened – and _he_ did that to her, _he_ got her involved, he's going to lose Pepper too – is drowned out by a nearly indescribable _sound_ , something felt rather than seen like a powerful bass line, but slid all the way up to the scale to something that would give dogs headaches.A monstrous bumblebee drills through his eardrums and sinks its stinger into his brain, and Tony's joints lock like he's been struck by lightning, or flash-frozen, or turned to stone.

"Breathe," a familiar, treacherous voice croons in his ear, as fingers take the phone, his last lifeline, away. A blood vessel bursts in his nose. He can feel the dripof the first bead of blood tickling his lip, and he can't even twitch to smudge it away. "Breathe. That's it."

 _No,_ Tony wants to cry out, wants to scream, wants to turn and punch out the man stabbing him in the back, but all he can do is blink, barely, eyes rolling uselessly in their sockets.

 _Not you. How could you? I don't understand._ Words he can't speak wail _why?_ like a betrayed child.

Obadiah drips poison in his ear, words of hate and envy poorly hidden behind patronizing, insincere praise, as he lowers Tony's rigid, paralyzed body onto the couch in a parody of care.

More than ever, Tony wants his beautiful, powerful armor banded around him, protecting him – without it, what is he anymore?

A _fool,_ blind and ignorant and naïve, and now truly helpless, as he has always been. Too busy chasing around after magic and having fun in a heady fantasyland to notice the rot spreading in his own house. Too starry-eyed to see the true nature of one of the few people he'd trusted, to realize that Obadiah Stane has been using him for years, that Tony's nothing more than a pretty, glib-tongued figurehead for people to stare at, preening and self-congratulatory, while behind his back Obadiah sold out _everything_ the Starks father and son have ever believed in.

Blackness rushes across Tony's vision, _despair_ , and for a moment he genuinely wishes he'd died back on that Afghanistan plain.

He'd never wanted this thing in his chest, but when Obadiah, his mentor, his second father, his _enemy_ rips it out of him, it feels like the man's torn out his heart.

And he may as well have, because without it, Tony has minutes to live.

…scratch that. He doesn't really want to die after all.

Because he can see it so clearly now, as Obadiah gloats over his frozen, dying form. War feeding on war feeding on war, glutting itself on the corpses of the dead and leaping back into battle, and _his_ work, the suit and the arc reactor, all that power in that little light, _Tony's legacy_ , at the heart of it all. It'll power nastier and more deadly weapons that kill just to kill, rather than clear skies, and ships soaring off to Mars and the stars, and the joy of flight, and armor that can stand up to everything else the world can throw at it and say _no._

 _No more._

With the arc reactor in his hands, and the armor, Obadiah will set the world on fire and sell matches to everyone who wants them, and pat their hands and tell them that a flamethrower's almost the same as a firehose.

And for all that knowledge and the terribly cold and empty feeling in his chest, it's Obadiah's offhand, faux-rueful comment, tossed back over his shoulder as he leaves with the future in his professional, tidy little case, that he's going to kill Pepper for being involved in this – for Tony getting her involved – that sinks the last barbed knife into his gut.

He should have sent her away, too.

* * *

Everything, everything is lost. It was taken from him.

Rage drives Tony to drag himself towards the curving staircase down to his workshop, one numb and frozen limb at a time, a zombie with its knees taken out from under it but the scent of life luring it on.

Dead man crawling. Undead, back from the dead, lucky to be alive, doesn't _deserve_ to be alive, crawled out of the grave for just one more fuckup –

He can't breathe. He can feel his heart stuttering out of rhythm, and _god,_ it's a terrible thing to be able to hear his own heartbeat as it flails and convulses, shrinking away from the deadly little fragments circling like vultures over something wounded, dying; patient and remorseless, knowing there's no escape and _hungry_.

Woodgrain scratches under his stubby fingernails as he begs the universe for one more breath, then demands it, then spits at that fucker and goes on anyway. Another lurch. Another few centimeters. Another limb to move forward. Another spot of floor to press the gaping reactor housing further towards his spine.

Tony curses everyone and everything, including himself, the damn blind fool, dying on the floor.

However bad the floor was, it's nothing compared to the stairs, which bump every centimeter of him, a separate blow for every movement –

But at the bottom, down all these stupid ledges, past the broken glass he'd destroyed to realize how useful the flight stabilizers could be, across the lab floor, there's a cute glass box with salvation inside, because Tony doesn't deserve to have nice things but he's kept Pepper this long and he's not going to let _anyone_ kill her and then go on to burn down the world.

There are people in this world Tony likes.

Most of the glass has been swept aside, which is good, because his vision is going dark with the lack of oxygen to his brain, heart staggering, not doing its job, and he can't see and he can't breathe, and he can't move. His limbs are moving, but he's not making any progress, and –

 _No, no, no…_

The world, it turns out, doesn't care, and Tony goes under into the darkness howling and scrabbling at the walls as they slip away and let him fall.

* * *

"– stupid, idiotic, fragile mortal imbecile – entirely witless, petty little creature – I should have left you to chase your tail until the sky fell down and solved things that way, at least then when you bit yourself in the ass it wouldn't have been _my_ problem – you're more trouble than you're even _possibly_ worth, you idiot, damn you!"

There's a voice, and Tony knows it, but he's too far under to respond or make any sense of it.

"Bastard!" it snarls, and, "Moron!" and words that Tony doesn't recognize. He speaks French and German and Spanish and Japanese and a bit of Mandarin, but that's like nothing he's ever heard before.

It sounds extremely pissed, though.

"- and oh no, you'll be fine, because you know what you're doing, of course!" the understandable words start up again in the middle of a sentence that had sounded like a reenactment, just from the tone of sarcastic British accent high-pitched in imitation of what was probably meant to be Tony. "You idiot! If you're dead, I will never let you hear the end of it, ever! I have put too much work into you – I hate you, you know that? Wake _up_!"

Tony takes a breath, and chokes on it, because he can _breathe_ , there's air in his lungs and he can practically feel it roaring through his brain, flipping switches and striking sparks and lighting things up again like a disco ball in a wind tunnel. Coughing raggedly, and realizing only as he tries to convulse around it that he's on his back and there's a weight on his stomach and lower body, he forces his eyes open.

The first thing he manages to focus on, scattered across the floor next to him, is a pile of glass shards and a metal frame he should recognize, somehow, and a shadow cast across the floor.

When he stops coughing, he manages to turn his head and look up into green eyes, glaring at him poisonously, and a scowl that's bared teeth in a snarl. From below, blue light casts the planes of his face into even sharper relief.

"I _hate_ you," says Loki, and thumps a fist down on Tony's shoulder.

"Ow," Tony says, or tries to. It comes out as more coughing, in the course of which he realizes that his racing heart is beating time again because that familiar old arc reactor is plugged into his chest and shining, and that Loki is sitting astride him, lower lip caught between his teeth and fear, actual fear in his eyes, and really, it does not take a genius to do the math here.

"How –" he asks instead, a second and a lifetime later. He's just going to lie here on the floor and breathe. It's fine.

Loki closes his eyes and braces a hand next to Tony's head as he sighs. " _Damn_ you," he says rather than answering. "I thought – you _people_ , you're so stupidly fragile, how do you get anything done?"

"Most of us don't run on batteries," Tony points out. He gropes at the reactor, checking it, bicycle-wheel spokes clicking beneath his fingers. "Loki, what the hell?"

"You ask me that?" The first couple of words are a shout, the rest hissed, and Loki raises a fist as if to thump him again. "You lie on the floor with your heart torn away and you ask _me_ what I am doing? _Pepper_ called me, because _she_ is the one with half a brain. What happened?"

Tony grimaces as the memory of Obadiah's voice and the covetous, greedy look on his face swims its way back up from his subconscious where all his nightmares live, hot-bunking it and setting up camp in sleeping bags in spare corners, taping themselves to the ceiling like that guy in that LAN party picture that keeps making the rounds of the computer geek circuit. "You gonna let me up?" he asks.

"No," Loki says like a child, scowling. But he moves anyway, and even offers Tony a rock-solid hand as the engineer tries to sit up.

Tony puts his back against his desk – he'd almost gotten there, or maybe Loki moved him while he was unconscious – and closes his eyes in a long blink. When he opens them again, Loki's crouching by his side, one knee to the ground for balance, looking him over skeptically as if he expects to find a status readout somewhere to go with the reactor back in his chest where Tony has never been so happy to have it.

He's back. He's back. One lost thing of Tony's, found again when he needed it most.

Something wrong in the world slots back into place like the arc reactor, proof he has a heart indeed, and Tony glows a little brighter.

"My hero," Tony declares, a weary, happy smile tugging at his mouth uncontrollably.

To his delight, Loki looks away and very nearly blushes. "I'm no one's hero," he answers, voice curt. Butterfingers rolls over, the whirr of his movements broken and interrupted. DUM-E and U aren't far behind, but they sound worse. It sounds like sabotage. Tony hates someone a lot.

"Tough shit," Tony says contentedly. He reaches out, manages to grab Loki's arm, and realizes for the first time that the magician is wearing a terrifically gorgeous black suit that's not at all appropriate for sitting on garage workshop floors, and somehow, in the midst of summer, it's very cold to the touch. God, was he at a party or an important meeting or something? Does Loki even _go_ to parties or important meetings? Tony's never been able to figure that out.

Did he drop everything and race over here, just because the lady who works for his jerk of an ex-boyfriend called him and said what, that she was worried because Tony dropped off the line mid-call?

Also, now that he has the brainpower to appreciate the sight – and concussed slugs probably have the brainpower to appreciate something so obvious – Loki looks amazing in it. Makes the shitflood that is today just that tiniest little bit better.

"You're mine anyway. You just saved my life, you know that?"

He would have crawled across more broken glass – there's tons around – to hear that disdainful snort again. "Don't make me into something I'm not. I don't like so many people that I can afford to stand by and watch one of the few I do die on the floor. Now what _were_ you doing?"

Tony doesn't get a chance to answer before someone shouts, "Get away from him!"

He recognizes the voice.

But obviously Loki doesn't, because between one beat of Tony's still-racing heart and the next, the magician twists around, right hand brushing over his left wrist as he rises snarling, and in an instant he's standing over Tony protectively with a long knife raised before him, ready to slash down.

In the doorway, Rhodey holds his ground, sidearm leveled dead between Loki's eyes, ready to fire.

"Whoa, whoa!" Tony shouts as loud as he has the breath for, before someone gets hurt, because someone is going to. "Stand down!"

Rhodey looks skeptical, eyes a bit wild, but he backs up a pace. Tony can only imagine the expression on Loki's face, but even from the floor, it's clear that he's wound tightly enough to snap.

Floor time should probably be over, then, and Tony tries to both get to his feet and defuse the standoff. "Neither of you are the enemy, guys. God, you're fast, Loki. Calm down. It's okay. And where the hell were you keeping that pigsticker? There's not a spare fold _on_ that suit. Rhodey, dammit, don't shoot him. Or me. Put the gun away. C'mon. Seriously."

Slowly, Rhodey holsters his gun, stepping into the lab as the magician lowers his knife, although he keeps it in his hand, depriving Tony of the chance to see where he was going to sheath it again.

"Tony," Rhodey asks, "what's going on? Are you okay? Pepper said –"

"Pepper's in trouble," Tony cuts him off. "Obadiah tried to kill me. Hired the Ten Rings. He's been selling my weapons under the table, dealing to both sides, probably for years. He was here. Took the arc reactor right out of my chest. He's going after Pep, too, I sent her to dig up those files –"

Rhodey swears fantastically. Tony catches Loki listening with interest, nodding approval even as those gem-green eyes tighten with unspoken fury – for _him_ , Tony realizes, at the man who tried to kill his lover.

He doesn't deserve these people, any of them.

"I'll call in someone to pick her up," Rhodey says, reaching for his phone. "Come on, I'll drive."

"You drive." Tony's eyes turn to the open space and the assembler hidden below. "I'll fly."

* * *

If he survives the next hour or so, Tony will savor forever the amazement on Rhodey's face as the red and gold suit slots into place, fuses together into the wonderful, powerful, beautiful thing it is, and the outright grin on Loki's as the magician looks him up and down and laughs.

"I knew you were interesting," says Loki.

"Back at you," Tony answers, the speakers making his voice a metallic growl he's quickly coming to like, a lot.

"Anything I can do?" Rhodey asks.

"Keep the skies clear."

* * *

And so, he's fighting for his life, for all their lives, against a monstrous, oversized, overpowered, corrupted version of his own sleek and practically tasteful by comparison combat armor, with the backstabbing bastard he'd once considered family plus his own stolen arc reactor at its heart.

And so, he's not facing down some terrified terrorists with handguns, but every missile and weapon and – is that a minigun? Shit, that's a minigun – that could possibly be jacked into that colossus.

And so, it could squash him flat, suit or no, with a single armored fist.

And so, he's running on a beta version of the reactor – _something big for fifteen minutes,_ his own voice echoes forward in time – and running out of time to shut that thing down before anyone else gets hurt.

And so, there are literally a _million_ or more civilians caught in the crossfire, potential victims or hostages or diversions.

And so, he's outmassed, outclassed, outpowered, on his own.

And so, _what?_

He's Tony fucking Stark, badass, and he's going to show Obadiah how it's done.

Obadiah ain't seen _nothin'_ yet.

Tony flies, and he fights, and he dances this dance like he's danced it a thousand times before, and will a thousand times again, and at times, between blows, between occupied cars being thrown at his head and missiles streaking past his body, he has to stop himself from laughing aloud.

There's an exhilaration running through him like fire, like alcohol, like sex; it's the joy of battle when he knows he's in the right, when he knows he's doing something important, when he's looking out for someone other than himself, and is looking totally awesome doing so.

He flies without knowing where he'll land, or how far there is to fall, or even if he'll survive to hit the ground before burning up in midair, and it's glorious.

He's back from the dead for a second time over, because the people he loves keep hauling him out of his grave and challenging him to do better, and now he's alive, and he's powerful, and he's in focus, like this is what he was meant for.

He's for making things, and he made this, and look at it go.

Look at _him_ go!

Not useless. Not helpless. Not a victim. Not as silly as people think, as even he'd thought he was. Not some square-jawed blond hero, dukes up nobly, but to hell with that, this is better; he'll still take cleverness and mischief and the razor's edge every time.

He soars, and he flies through the fire untouched, and he darts around that lumbering monstrosity of Obadiah's, ducking and dodging and fighting _back._

Any part of his mind that might have protested that this is _madness_ is drowned out by the exhilarated laughter of the rest of him, running on pure adrenaline.

He's wrapped in a suit of high-tech armor, but wings of pure light and freedom have opened up in his chest, and he's happier than he's ever been.

Tony's got people to protect. People who care for him.

So he stands between them and Obadiah Stane, and his perverted killer armor, and everything that backstabbing traitor wants to do at the expense of everyone else.

Because Tony's just found that there's nothing better than having something to live for, even if he dies for it.

* * *

Not for the first time, and not for the last, thank goodness, Pepper Potts slightly wants to punch her boss.

She settles for removing a butterfly bandage just a little more sharply than necessary.

"Ow," Tony says, and beams at her anyway. He's been Mr. News all morning, reading her choice passages from the newspapers Happy had been sent out to fetch as soon as they hit the racks, and loading up a dozen websites every time she turned around, tabs popping up like mushrooms, and there were at least three TVs tuned to a total of eighteen different news channels – Pepper counted.

He's toting around his favorite, the one with "WHO IS IRON MAN?" on the front page, and even though he's nattering about the name not being scientifically or technically accurate, Pepper doesn't have to be a supergenius adrenaline junkie idiot to know that first, he likes it a lot, and second, she's going to be hearing that name for the rest of absolutely forever.

Agent Coulson comes in, discreetly and politely insistent, and doesn't quite dismiss her while the agent goes over Tony's lines with him one more time.

She goes anyway, assessing today's press conference and its crop of hungry, eager reporters with a weary, wary eye. She knows just about everyone in this room. Most of them know better than to pester her for hints, and she puts off – politely enough – the few over-enthusiastic hopefuls who try it, imploring them to wait a few more seconds and they'll get the full story.

Or at least, the SHIELD-approved one, which is 100 percent not remotely true. Agent Coulson has been making _this will lead to paperwork_ faces.

Ah. She really _does_ know everyone in this room, including the man leaning against the back wall, dressed down in beiges and browns so boring her eyes nearly slide right over him. He might almost be a writer from some struggling daily newspaper, except he doesn't have paper or pen or tablet or voice recorder, and he's watching the crowd from the back of the room, not the podium. Also, he's tucked his long hair up under a newsboy cap in equally dull brown, which Pepper suspects is a joke.

"Thank you," Pepper says quietly, joining him – not looking at him, as if she was just standing here, as if she has no idea who he is and certainly couldn't tell stories, if asked.

She really doesn't know who he is, she suspects, but she could tell stories.

But she won't, because Loki has proven himself to her in every way that counts.

He'd answered, when she'd called him – she doesn't know what Tony is always whining about – and she'd said only, _I know you're mad, but Tony's in trouble, please tell me you're somewhere near the house_ , and he'd answered, _I'll find him_.

Loki sighs, now. Takes his hands out from behind his back and folds them across his chest. "I _can_ care. I just usually don't."

"He's looking for you," Pepper warns him, letting the wistful note in his voice pass uncommented-on. She suspects her input would not be welcomed.

"Of course he is," Loki answers. He grins at her. She can't stop herself from smiling back. She can always use another pair of hands interested in keeping Tony alive and in one mostly intact piece and happy, and if this man is willing… "And he will yet find me – I am here, am I not?"

"I'm kind of surprised that you are, actually." There are a lot of professional nosy-pokes, otherwise known as journalists, around, and Loki officially doesn't exist anywhere – she got that much from Tony and confirmed it through JARVIS.

"Tony's in front of _cameras,_ " Loki says, eyes sparkling, grinning like a fox strolling out of the rabbit hutch licking fur from its muzzle. "This should be good."

* * *

It was.

* * *

 _End of Act Two_

 _To be continued._

 **Author's Note:** "Mirage" will be on hiatus for the next two weeks to give me time to regain my lead. This will ensure reliable, on-time, better chapters, with everything set up and thought out and foreshadowed in appropriate moments, throughout Act Three. **"Mirage" will resume on May 14** **th** **. Promise!**


	8. Earth to Echo

ON WITH THE SHOW!

 **Author's Note:** Please notice that the rating has gone up throughout Act III for language and sexual content.

* * *

 **Chapter Eight: Earth to Echo**

Not greatly to his surprise, Loki is not happy. But this time, much to his displeasure, even he must admit it might actually be his fault.

He's never one to admit that he's out of his depth, but he wonders helplessly, frustrated, if this time he might have gone too far. Still, he can't see where he went wrong, or where he might have stopped.

All he'd needed was an ally, even an unwitting one – especially an unwitting one, for then he could have fled and cared nothing at all for the world he would leave behind. Caring _hurts_.

Caring is the terror that had ripped through him at the desperation and grief and anguish that had echoed back through the wolfthread, as he prowled through an evening that had been _overcast_ , somehow, never mind the lights and noise and chaos of an ordinary Las Vegas night on all sides. And then the phone he does carry with him – he tells Tony that he doesn't, but only to make the man scowl – had hummed beneath his hand. Bare moments after he'd answered the frightened, familiar voice, _despair_ gripped his arm like killing ice, and he'd run.

Caring is the power he'd torn from the reservoir in his soul, shoving it into screaming, protesting forms so that every racing step became a thousand, twisting the space between them as he'd sought the home that sang of refuge, of sanctuary, that had opened to him and bid him welcome. Traveling in stumbling, painful leaps _between_ places – not safe, to travel so, with the Void roaring hunger and the true Ways still hidden from his blinded senses – he'd thought only of his lover and his pain.

Caring is the howl of rage that had risen in his throat and choked him until he could not breathe with the fury of it, at the sight of _his Tony_ near-dead amid the shards and devastation scattered across the floor where once they'd walked together, before _some thief_ took that away.

Nothing he'd shown that night had been a lie, or even a misdirection.

Midgardians say _my heart in my mouth_ ; well, Loki had tasted the blood of his on his tongue, cradling it there like the most fragile thing, feeling it flutter in panicked sympathy with the one faltering under his hands. Not for the first time he had wished in vain that his magic paced more towards healing and less towards the shadows of war.

Caring is – _oh_ , how badly he'd wanted to kill the man who'd struck his lover down. There was _no_ fate in all the realms too dire, Loki had raged, for the man who had _taken what is mine!_

Only the light rekindling in Tony's eyes had cut through the desperate need to hunt and _hurt_ and, eventually, kill, and Loki had pulled himself back from that madness enough to remember who he was, here.

One of the hardest things Loki has done since he was cast down to this world was to step away. Was to let Tony take on his armor and his weapons and fight, as his new-fledged and shining warrior was clearly meant to do.

But the sight of that battle had been almost as sweet as the taste of his enemy's blood, and if he could not have the one, then he _would_ have the other. Loki had vanished the moment Rhodey had turned his back; the man has looked at him somewhat oddly, since, when he thinks himself unobserved, but no matter. Tony will hear no word of suspicion against him, even if Rhodey could bring some accusation that Tony would understand. And Loki had followed the tantalizing trail of fury and fire and jangling power bound up in blue light.

All unseen, he had walked the boundaries of the battle and rejoiced in it. Part of him had laughed in pure, unadulterated delight, seeing Tony come into his own and defend his crown. Part of him had licked the blood from its jowls and torn its claws into the earth, hoping for its chance to strike.

And when all was done and the last blow had fallen, power blazing towards the sky, Loki had breathed it in with satisfaction, feasting on the certainty that _here_ was what and who he'd needed, after all.

Pepper thinks she was the first one to reach Tony's side as he lay battered and unconscious on that rooftop, but Loki moves on lighter feet and in less silly shoes than she. And with _life_ beating through the tracking spell around his wrist, the magician, prince of another world in his own right and lover of a prince of this one, had knelt at his side and pressed a kiss to his forehead and whispered, "Well fought, my warrior."

Only in the days that followed had Loki realized his miscalculation.

What has he _done_ to himself? His road home is within his grasp, but Loki finds himself thinking of the end of it with reluctance. If he lets things play out as he intends them to, then he will never be able to tell Tony all the stories of home that would make the man laugh, or that would bring bright amazement to his eyes, or that would catch his attention and keep it, breath held in anticipation against the next knot in the tale.

Loki wants to lift his hands between them, and say, "Look," and show Tony all that he can do.

No. Not quite.

He is a master of illusions and deceptions, invisibility his readiest weapon, misdirection his sharpest blade, suggestion his cleverest trick, and yet all Loki wants to say is, "See me."

He has not lied to Tony. He has never met his mortal's eyes and told him something that was not true. But he has let Tony believe, as if not mentioning the false road might be the same as leading him along a true one. He knows that when Tony comes to the chasm this path leads to, dividing them, he will take this discovery ill.

And that should not _matter_ , for _nothing_ matters, except returning home the only way Loki can bear to. But he erred, somewhere, and now it does.

Caring hurts, Loki maintains, and he does not like it.

The Norns must be laughing. He has found someone worth staying for, and it's the same person who might be able to let him leave.

 _Home_ , he reminds himself. _Asgard. Asgard that must be mine, one day, if I wish it to remain standing._

There is more at stake than his selfish heart.

There are the shining towers of Asgard, as bright as the sea that becomes the stars. There are the secrets held close and protected within her heart, glorious dangers and terrible wonders that could restore worlds to life, or more easily set them aflame, used carelessly. There are the stories in the realms beyond, that should be only steps along hidden Ways and a leap across the Void beneath the worlds away, waiting to be uncovered and savored.

There is the complex and ever-shifting web of promises and alliances and ancient grudges that knots among the realms, all unseen, as essential as blood and much more difficult to trace with a light hand that leaves no mark. There are the whispers of the wind that blows through the Void, singing in unintelligible harmony with the ripples of the deepest-hidden springs that pour life and death throughout the Tree of Worlds.

There is a war of _endings_ coiling in the darkness, and it waits to break free through any fracture it can find. The casual cruelty of a jest out of place. A challenge that should not be offered or met. Or simply the careless impulses of someone who does not understand consequences, or catalysts, or the scale of the game they were both born to play.

To protect these things from rough hands, Loki will do much, no matter who he wounds.

He just wishes he did not feel so conflicted about the world – and the man – he must leave behind, should all go as he still wishes it to.

 _Mortal,_ the darkness within him sneers, and turns away as the rest of him flinches, remembering the fear and the pain deep inside at the sight of Tony gasping, dying, as he inevitably will – as he _must_ , Midgardian and fragile that he is.

 _Mine_ , the rest of him replies, and holds tight to that, for Tony _is._ And it is a strange and wonderful comfort, to have a friend and a lover and an ally, someone he can go to and reach out to and lie beside, knowing that he is wanted. He had been sure of this even when Tony had sent him away – and that had hurt keenly, but the spell bound about his wrist had told him how much to do so had hurt _Tony_ , as well. Loki had not truly believed in the rejection. He could be patient, and wait for the damage to Tony's soul to heal before Loki tried to touch him again.

Loki has been a wounded wolf before, and bitten those who were only trying to help him; that is what wounded wolves _do_ , and no fault of theirs.

"Hey," Tony's voice cuts into his thoughts, amused. "Loki, you still in there?"

Blinking, Loki tries to raise one hand to brush his hair away from his eyes and remembers in time not to. "I – yes. I was…elsewhere."

"No kidding." Tony pops another vegetable into his mouth agilely and talks around it. "Think I could have taken that bit of chicken you've been meditating over right away from you and you'd have never seen me do it."

"You could not have."

"Can so. Watch me!" Clacking his sticks together like snapping teeth, Tony leans over the table and pinches the disputed piece of meat away. Loki lets him have it, smiling faintly, amused less by Tony's antics than by the man's evident pleasure in them. "See? Serves you right for stealing my food all the time."

"I would have noticed, if you'd tried." And yet, Loki briefly doubts this. He has been trained to be aware of anything around him that might be a weapon, and he himself could do _significant_ harm with even something as innocuous and breakable as eating sticks – no, _chop_ sticks, here, despite having no chopping edge whatsoever. But the more he learns of this language, as he listens to sounds rather than relying on his innate understanding of meaning, the less he expects to understand it. There's a poetry in it, sometimes, and it seems distantly related to his first language, but it's otherwise a terrifying jumble of phrases.

Despite the power slumbering above Tony's heart, and the fire held at bay within it, Loki knows he's in no danger here. Not from this man, beaming up at him and threatening with laughter in his voice to hand-feed the meal to him if he doesn't eat.

"Voices in your head getting too loud, huh?" Tony grimaces. "Been there. Usually I head downstairs and work until I pass out on my desk or fall over Butterfingers or try to drink a mug of pens or something. How 'bout you?"

 _Voices in my head_ …perhaps, but Loki wishes they weren't all his own. And that he had a truer answer to offer Tony in reply, for he cannot tell the man _I turn myself into a wolf, and run until something tries to kill me and I can tear it apart, or I lock myself within my rooms and build illusions so detailed I can fall asleep in them and wake not knowing where I am or how I came there._

"Something similar, I suppose," he says instead, and adds, "And now I have you."

And why, after all, has he entangled his life with this man's if not so he can reach out and kiss the taste of the meal from his lips, and that of the wine far too rich for it, and that mysterious and intangible taste all Tony's own from the tongue meeting his gladly?

He does _so_ enjoy the way Tony kisses him, every touch a demand and plea, all that bright intelligence focused down to this moment, here.

"Yeah," Tony agrees a little while later – the food has not grown cold, at least – eyelashes fluttering delightfully. "That helps. God, I should have kicked everything else out the door and asked you to come home days ago. Almost forgot how _good_ we are."

Loki can't help but laugh, slightly scandalized, at the thought of _him_ as this man's attendant lover, called back to his side to calm and comfort him before the next battle. Oh, but turn the thought about, and _that's_ delicious.

But he does want to be here – this man is his, hadn't he won Tony fairly enough? And what if some other jealous, slinking traitor had tried to move against him?

True enough, Tony is the darling of this world now, all eyes turned to him and all praise showered upon him for his cleverness and the show he puts on so readily, but…

Insisting the entire time that he didn't come when called for, Loki had still returned to his lover's side the moment Tony asked him to, which is how they come to be here, locked away from the attention of strangers, content with Tony's home and simple food and each other's company.

"I do have work of my own, you realize. Although I am tempted to leave those teleporting boxes of mine broken, and the people who continue breaking them to wail for their own amusement."

The fight over who tampered with them this time may still be going on, for all Loki knows. But the team behind that show isn't going to find the culprit this time, for it was the work of a moment and a thought for Loki to break them himself, only a thread of the spell pulled askew for reasons of his own. For one thing, the director irritates him.

"Aw." Tony sets down his wineglass and throws an arm around his shoulders briefly, a rough but affectionate embrace. "But they're just so tempting. And box-shaped. And clever. They still after you to build bigger ones?"

"Now and again, but I have done all I can with what I have. To do more I would need something both sturdier than their current frames and more intricate, to safely move larger objects over greater distances."

His mortal friend beams. "Hey, now you're talking my language. Finally! That's an engineering problem! They keep bugging you, call me – and don't give me that look, I know, I know. Your secrets. Seriously, though. Can't wait to see you beam someone into the middle of the Mandalay wave pool with those…which I would not be surprised if you could do."

Loki smiles, and says nothing.

"Holy shit. You're kidding. Are you kidding? You can't do that. Can I be first?"

He can't resist the urge to brush his fingers across Tony's awestruck and disbelieving expression. _I might, pet. Think on that._ "And that," he says simply, "is one of the reasons I enjoy my craft so much."

Tony catches his fingers and kisses them. "Sure. You don't fool me. I know you don't really like it there, remember." His lover nips against his pulse, and Loki bites back a sigh. "C'mon, Loki, admit it, you'd rather be here. Wouldn't you?"

 _Yes, but then I might never leave, and I must._ Loki pushes him away, but not very hard. "Then what lies would I tell to the rare few who work up the courage to ask me about you?"

"No, no, then you wouldn't have to! So, uh, what _are_ you telling people? Now that you mention it and all."

With Tony sufficiently distracted, Loki ducks around him and steals the last bit of sauce-slathered steak that the man had been hoarding not quite out of his reach. Over Tony's halfhearted protests – the entire meal has been one extended game of keep-away, and somehow most of it has stayed on the table – Loki grins at him and says, "Little enough. I've no desire to share your spotlights, pet, as you seem to be chasing every one you can find."

"Okay, in all fairness, they come after _me,_ and I don't think they're going to stop this time _._ The Iron Man thing – I mean, _god,_ I'm having fun, it's the best thing since you, really, but this, this here? This is the first more than half an hour I've gotten to myself since that press conference."

He likes this rice mixture. This is good. It's not complicated, but it's good, and it sticks together interestingly. Most of it tastes familiar, why hasn't Asgard come up with this yet?

Oh yes, because if it can't be roasted over a campfire on campaign, it's for babies and handmaidens, and not real food.

"I tell them what they knew already, that you wished my magic for yourself, and that I would not give it to you no matter how fiercely you wooed me – and no, Tony, you know I can keep secrets. To them I speak only of my craft. I say that you have found a far shinier toy to play with, and that they have only to look to the nearest screen to see the truth of that. But I could not have hidden that we spend time together, and so the questions continue."

Tony frowns thoughtfully. Loki sets aside the urge to kiss him, at least for now. "You know, I never figured that out. You're right, we've been all over Vegas together, and that place is full of cameras. Any insights on how come not a single tabloid ever got hold of that? Most of the time even before Iron Man, I couldn't even buy a new pair of sunglasses without it getting written up somewhere."

 _Because one of my ready spells now blurs cameras, perhaps? Because you bask in the glare that would burn me? Because I need you, not the stares and the whispers of your followers? Because while I can hide myself from the golden eyes of the Gatekeeper, the tracks I leave on the world must be brushed out one by one, or else not left at all?_

That lesson he learnt early, that even an invisible child would still leave tracks in snow as he slipped away from a tutor he was tired of listening to. Loki wishes he could tell Tony that story. He wants to see Tony laugh, and to laugh with him – the sting of that rebuke has long since faded, and the humor in it shines brighter.

"Was this the pair you sat on, by chance?"

"Shut up already."

"Then how am I to answer you?"

"You are just the worst."

 _I like you too, pet._

"Oh, I threatened them," Loki says instead, mildly.

Tony blinks at him. It's almost too easy to take the carton of spicy vegetables out from under his hand. No real challenge. No fun. Loki will wait. "Sorry, you did what?"

His eyes have fallen to Loki's wrists, and the knives he believes hidden there, and it's not hard to follow his thoughts. "Not like that," Loki scolds. "I don't run through the city shouting, throwing a sword in the air, when a word will do. I've seen that done. It wasn't particularly attractive."

"Ouch?" Tony ventures.

"He – a friend of my brother's – called the result _interesting dueling scars._ "

"I'm guessing you didn't agree."

At least this is one story he can share, if slightly edited. "I called it _accidentally hacking off half of your own face_. To his face, and in front of his friends."

"Definitely ouch." But he has made Tony laugh, which is…pleasant. Loki decides not to share the part where Thor had very nearly picked him up like a kitten to keep him from tearing Fandral another _interesting dueling scar_ , although Fandral had come off worse, in Volstagg's enormous hands. And it hadn't even scarred, at that – Aesir healing gifts at work.

"But after you came searching for me, I only mentioned that if I was not left in peace to work my magic, then I and my craft would go elsewhere."

"And that worked?"

"Given the persistence of people who take apart my teleporting boxes? Like magic, if you'll pardon the phrase."

Tony rolls his eyes extravagantly. "Oh, you think you're so clever. How long have you been waiting to use that one?"

"Long enough."

"Diva," Tony says, as affectionate as a caress.

Ironic enough, as most of the singers – if Loki understands that term correctly – won't even be in the same room as him anymore. It's no great loss. Loki can always find other targets to sharpen his tongue upon. "I'm not the one watching myself on the television all the time," he teases, for there is indeed a screen in the next room left on, if silent – Loki can see the flicker of its light.

Tony points out, somewhat righteously, "There's nothing else on."

There isn't. Every spotlight in this world seems trained on Tony and his near-magical – "No, no, no, it's technology, Loki, it's just really _good_ technology, you should understand that!" – suit of armor.

Loki can understand that – he does enjoy watching Tony work on it and within it. Although he does not yet see how, should he ever get the chance, Loki should love to test his own skills against it. He might not be as quick to leap into a brawl as his brother (he _does_ miss Thor, although possibly only because Thor is safely elsewhere) or his brother's friends (whom he does not miss at all, except as unwitting targets) but there is _joy_ in a good fight, in practice or in play. And perhaps Tony would find a decent sparring match as tantalizing as he does…

"And look who's talking about vain," his lover grins, eyes glittering, "I've seen you brushing your hair in the morning. It's like _porn_."

Briefly, Loki considers throwing the vegetable he was going to eat at Tony instead. On Asgard this would be perfectly acceptable, even expected – any feast that doesn't turn into a fight at some point is considered boring.

But somehow, erecting one tiny magical shield to protect one's drink from flying venison is _cheating_.

…fine, as was enchanting every piece of thrown food to rebound upon the thrower, which had led directly to the often-repeated and as-often-violated "no magic at the table, Loki!" rule.

"Oh, I've noticed," Loki replies smoothly – Tony enjoys watching him groom himself just as much as Loki enjoys doing so, and both of them are perfectly happy with the arrangement. But there's always space to push a little further. Watching his chance, he adds, "You could always help, since you're so interested."

Tony nearly coughs up his mouthful of rice and meat and vegetables. "You mean that?"

Misdirection, timing…same blade, two edges. "Well," Loki says, wrinkling his nose in mock disgust at the noises Tony is making, "not _anymore_."

"God, I hate you."

 _I need to go home, and I don't want to leave you,_ Loki regrets, bittersweet, as he takes that for the invitation that it is and kisses his lover into surrender, the meal forgotten, the rest of the night and the morning beyond their own to share.

 _I want to take you_ with _me, pet,_ he traces into Tony's skin as the man whimpers beneath his hands.

 _I need you here,_ he cries out, muffled in the body slotted against his own _._

 _Trust me just a little further,_ Loki whispers as he draws them both towards the edge, as if it were nothing more than part of the game between them.

 _And remember,_ he thinks, closing his eyes and letting everything else fall away, _I told you that you shouldn't._

* * *

Perhaps there is another way. If Loki can only find it before Tony follows the lures he set out so carefully, then he can cover lie with lie and lead his lover – his friend, he has a friend, _how_ did that happen? – away from the chasm. And then Loki will be…not forgiven, for he will have done nothing wrong…but able to meet his eyes clearly, and to share all the things he wants to.

And he does have a lead he can follow. He has a scent-trail laid down months ago and neglected for more immediate concerns, and more charming pleasures, than following in the tracks of his enemies.

In the half-darkness of a street where a pack of trolls had dared to hunt him, and paid in blood and lives for their presumption, Loki crouches over a stone that still remembers that death and crooks his fingers to it.

 _Tell me_ , he says to it, in a way it cannot ignore. _Show me. Remember._

No shape visible to mortal eyes rises from the stone, but a _sense_ of the troll lingers. Heavy and hunting and alien, wary of a sun and sky not its own, hungry and angry like relentlessly grinding stones. Steps that dragged across the surface of Midgard, this world's clutch so much stronger than its own realm. Aware of its fellows, and its leader, and the hot, quick blood all around, _prey_ incautious in its belief that stone given life long ago has remained as slow as its forebears _._

There's the trail, and Loki rises and breathes _presence_ into the shadow, giving it the brutish form it had reclaimed after the magician had sent his friend away to protect him.

And it had been a _good_ fight, as Loki counts such things. Freed from the grasping weight of mortal eyes and with bloodlust surging in his veins, the half-darkness had seemed bright as clear day or an empty stage, brought into sharp focus by the knowledge that he was fighting for his freedom, what little of it remains, and his sanity, and his life.

"So take me, if you can," Loki had challenged Thiassi's pets in return, flipping one blade idly in a hand to draw their eyes while the other remained low and ready. "And be quick about it. I'm sure you have only moments until your master dies of his wounds, and do you really believe that bitch-child of his will honor his debts?"

A flicker of movement to his left was two of them leaping to the attack, and Loki had held his ground as if he'd seen nothing.

Idiots. One day he will face someone who _thinks_ before they jump at an illusionist, and on that day Loki may well surrender to them just for the pleasure of their company.

Loki's first reflex in battle is to be somewhere other than where he seems to be, even if it's only a step backwards. He was still close enough to slam his long knife through the ear-hole of the nearest diving troll and knock its twitching corpse under the feet of its fellow as they both stumbled through the shuddering image and then into each other.

In a crowd, he can be everywhere and nowhere, weaving illusion and invisibility and the magic hissing along the edge of his blade into a merciless whirlwind.

The hunting pack had not died silently, but they had died quickly.

Loki had elsewhere to be, and someone to be with, and little time to play.

To follow his friend and soothe his fears, and not to track his enemies – Loki had made that choice without hesitation, caught by the sentiment that dogs his steps ever more fiercely. He cannot truly regret it, rewarded as he was. But under the cold light of trepidation that burns through him, now he returns to turn their pursuit to his own purposes.

Nearly transparent, a ghost recreated from stone's memories stands still, until Loki casts his spell wider.

 _Remember this one. Tell me where he walked._

The ghost shambles backwards, retracing its steps.

Loki smiles, and follows.

To be precise, perhaps there is another _Way_.

There are places where one realm bleeds into another, like secret passages slipping down back stairs and through deserted wings where no one goes. There are places where the Tree of Worlds grows across itself, often no more than one branch brushing against another, and there the boundaries between places are weaker. There are cracks in the world.

They can be traversed, with care, and by those with eyes to see the signs and the patience to seek them out. While they are not always _safe_ , and they change over time as the wind between worlds blows, the knowledge of them is precious and indispensable.

Loki has made the finding and exploring of such Ways a pursuit of his. It suits him to appear where he was not expected, and walk where no one knows he has traveled, and the subtle Ways are more to his taste than the blazing, shining, raw _power_ of the Bifrost.

Let others ride out in force heralded by light that can shatter stone, and the blessing of the Gatekeeper, and an escort of brassy, full-throated lurs just to complete the spectacle. Quite often those warriors in their jangling armor have found Loki already waiting there, with the shape of the battlefield drawn out in light before him, and the secret fears that soldiers whisper to themselves in the imagined privacy of their own camp held ready to use against them.

Every Realm has its stories of those who have slipped through the cracks in the world by accident and found danger and adventure there – Midgard is _bursting_ with them, crossroads of worlds and nest of storytellers that it is.

Loki wonders sometimes if Tony has paid the slightest bit of attention to the books left half-read all around his house, and the tale so many of them tell.

Most of the stories are full of cracks themselves, but the core of them is real.

There are gaps in the skin of the world where the twigs of one branch of the Tree twine amidst the leaves of another. There are Ways to walk from one to another, most holding the endless Void beneath at bay – if the walker is careful, nimble and light on his feet, and perhaps with light in hand, for _that_ is a spell that was ancient-old when Loki first heard it.

Some Ways are treacherous. Some can only be walked in one direction. Some must be stepped away from just as the temptation to continue grows greatest, or they can never be left at all. Some pass through places as inimical to life as the Void itself, ready to crush and burn the unwarded traveler and never notice. Loki can make his way through the fires of Muspelheim, or the deep cold of the Jotun ice, but the Way that opens only on rock buried in the core of one world or another was a trap he escaped only by heartbeats; perhaps not even his father's wolves would have ever found his corpse.

But the Ways can be understood, with care, and if Loki can only find the crack in the skin of this world that brought his enemies to him, then he can follow it back to more familiar ground.

The memory-shadow emerges onto busier streets, and Loki cloaks it and himself with a thought. If the indistinguishable hordes streaming by sense it at all, they will feel only a breath of cold, or perhaps a prickling of their skin, and a shudder easily brushed away.

Still, the lights burn through it, carving away wisps like ravens descending upon the dead, and the solid stones that had answered his spell give way to crushed and broken ones.

The road remembers less. No thick blood was spilled here, and the shadow of the troll flickers into the disguise it had worn to pass unremarked-upon by mortals. No different. Not memorable.

Too long ago.

Too much has happened, since then, he realizes, forlorn hopes dying as quickly as the spell. Too many feet and too many machines have passed this way, all but obliterating the trail. And as more of Loki's attention turns to the intricate dance of moving invisibly among crowds, the spell begins to fade.

 _No!_ Loki curses it, gritting his teeth and reaching for the reins of it as if it were a misbehaving horse. He shoves his magic along the spell at the core of all of it: _Do as I command!_

This is his chance to set things right _without_ hurting the man he has grown so fond of. If he can only find this single Way his enemies must have trodden… He _knows_ from whom and where they came, and from Thiassi's halls, even burnt and smoking as they may yet be, he could find the Way to Asgard with the eyes of his body and the eyes of his magic all closed.

It should be easy. He knows this dance. He can balance dozens of illusions with a broad handful of spells in the crush of battle, fending off blades and turning arrows upon their own archers, and still raise his voice to taunt a friend or an enemy or his brother, without missing a step. This crowd should be no different, but this _world…_ The starstruck visitors move differently, and his battle-honed reflexes begin to fail him in the face of so many hungry-eyed, trusting mortals.

A single lapse of concentration and the scent will fade, or some mortal will stumble into him and demand to know what it has hit, but Loki _cannot_ lose the trail now.

It had taken him months to realize the cruel cunning of the All-Father's punishment in abandoning his younger son here, in this realm where no Aesir has set foot in centuries.

There are Ways here. There must be. Midgard has too many tales of the Aesir, with too many names right – but the stories wrong, and Loki has long since sighed and set that irritation aside.

Loki _cannot see the Ways._

The trick of vision and magic he uses to sense the hidden crossroads has been struck from his mind, inner eye as blinded as his father's lost one by Odin's curse.

Loki's magic is his, part of him for as long as he can remember. He has honed that innate talent through long study and practice into a ready weapon, and to remove it all might well kill him. As well tear out his heart – and memory pulls tight across that new, raw weakness within him, that sighs and softens under a mortal's smile.

But that single, tiny, crucial skill has been taken from him.

Clever, _clever_ , Loki has cursed the All-Father in return many nights over. He has spent so many of those nights hunting blindly through this ever-changing city of travelers and illusion and crossroads for the one lost corner where the barrier between the worlds would wear away just thin enough to be torn.

He's never found it.

So much more tidy than trying to defend against him from all sides, walling Midgard away or raising Asgard's shields against its own prince. What need for walls, when Loki cannot even find the path _towards_ them?

It's an elegant solution. Loki hates it.

It's an _ironic_ solution, the master of illusions blinded to what he should be able to see at a glance. Loki hates _that_ especially.

That moment's distraction, as he wraps a fist around that grievance and feels it bite deep, costs Loki dearly. The noise of human voices, jumbled and meaningless and full of blind glee, beats against him as his focus shifts away from his fraying spell. Someone in the crowd knocks into his elbow, and he startles, leaping away on instinct and turning with one hand raised to strike or defend.

He remembers where he is too late, but quickly enough to find a path out of the laughing, awestruck mob of visitors who pour through the Las Vegas Strip like a million tiny rivers each running in their own watercourse. Agilely, Loki ducks and turns and steps aside, weaving through gaps like a shadow, until he senses the presence of a wall at his back.

A human would have been trapped there; for Loki, it's an easy leap to the roof.

Safely atop one of the buildings that pretends to be a seafront inn, Loki snarls in frustration. Actors promenade across the deck of the nearby sailing ship and burst into song alongside costumed bird-women in the rigging and fish-women in the water below. Flames break out. They're not his doing.

He knows instantly that the spell is broken, the memory lost, the shadow faded, and that every attempt to resurrect it will only destroy it further.

He has lost the trail. The Way remains hidden.

"And now I'm lying to myself," Loki mutters to no one at all. He tries not to talk to himself aloud. It's a poor habit, for those who wish to keep secrets. But there are overblown pirates trying to out-scream a platoon of women wearing feathers and little else, now hanging from hidden wires over the deck of the sinking ship, and who does Loki imagine will hear him?

"Should have tracked them while the blood was still wet, but no, I got _stupid_. I went after _him_ , because what, because he was scared? Because he would have worried for me? Stupid, stupid, so _what?_ He's just – he's not – I shouldn't – oh, I hate this, I just want to go home!" His blade materializes in his hand, and he stabs it down into the tarred-over wood, tearing strips out of the roof.

It's work, to remember that the ship isn't really supposed to burn. Loki does want to burn something right now. But he bites the impulse back and takes control again, summoning up all the throwing knives that will fit into his hand and flicking them down around him. He counts the _thunk_ s off carefully, focusing on that familiar sound.

"No. No matter. I'll find a way." He smiles mockingly, but mostly at himself, and clicks his fingers. The knives fade back into the magic they'd come from, a wisp of light that floats into the palm of his raised hand and melds back into his skin without leaving a mark. "Or _make_ one."

Still, the failure makes the raucous noise and glaring lights of his prison that much worse, and instead he narrows his eyes at the orchestrated chaos of the mock ship battle.

He can't see the mischief that glints in those eyes, but he feels it as a tickle in his fingers from the magic waiting there; the grin that nips at the corner of his mouth, bitten back through long practice; the tug in the back of his mind that unspools _possibilities_ across his imagination; the memory of movement, a push in just the right place to make things spiral so that they're more interesting…and a snap of fingers to spark it all to life.

Shadows dive out of the flaming sails and swoop around the wire-suspended, feather-garbed women, and their amplified songs choke in their throats as an unearthly screech answers. Barely visible, stage lighting doing nothing at all to illuminate them, _things_ flap and soar, tumbling wildly among the performers. They're a shade larger than the flying singers, and a thousand upturned and bared throats gasp in unison.

For a moment, the performers try to stick to the script, drawn along by the recorded music blaring from discreet speakers. But then one plunges into a spotlight and snaps its wings out into a sudden stop, revealing itself as one of the sirens – although they did not call themselves that, and a closer word might be _harpy_ – that Loki is familiar with, a state that he rather regrets.

Straggle-haired and scarred, feathers patched across the bloodstained and filthy skin of stomach and flat chest, its face is narrowed into a muzzle not quite sharp enough to be called a beak, and the plentiful fangs it flashes at the staring audience below are as narrow and sharp as needles. Its sallow golden eyes flash in the shifting light as someone quick off the mark in the lighting booth plays the spotlight across its multicolored, garish plumage, and it screams a harsh challenge.

Half a dozen more swarm around the ship, throwing all into chaos for an utterly delightful minute or so. Someone on the ship rallies the pirates, and they put up a good show of trundling a prop cannon around while others wave swords and long hooks at the unscripted menaces, although the harpies never come quite close enough to engage.

The crowd _roars_ , drowning out the hastily improvised dialogue – someone on board is getting a raise for quick thinking – and the applause from everyone not holding up video recorders and the occasional new cell phone is deafening. The _Sirens_ show runs every half-hour or so (which Loki well knows, it's impossible to ignore) but this is new!

They love it, and from the rooftop, still invisible, Loki chuckles to himself. The appreciation is real, for all they don't know who's behind it. It's a surprising pleasure to have even mortal strangers respond to his magic like the magic it is rather than a cheap trick from someone who'd rather plan his way out of a fight than charge at the thickest clump of it with a yell. With a wave of a finger and a mental command, he directs the illusory harpies to swoop over the cheering crowd in a long loop, and then through the spotlights as they stab into the night sky randomly, trying to keep up.

To the accompaniment of whoops and whistles and yells of mingled delight and disbelief, the harpies converge on the ship in a swirling tornado of colorful, ratty feathers and flashing claws, and stream up into the night in an insignificant echo of the Bifrost's beam.

When the spotlight loses them – almost immediately – Loki clicks his fingers again and dismisses their images. Somewhere in the sky they blink out, and the magic dissipates.

The applause goes on even through the announcer's attempt to bring the show to some sort of conclusion. No one's having any of it.

Also, some actress's scream of "What the _fuck!_ " gets broadcast by accident, which is almost as big a hit as the harpies.

Smirking, amused, Loki lets himself bask in the approval, undirected as it is, and although he wishes he'd never had to come here, once again he wonders that there's a place like this in all the Realms.

He tries not to admit even to himself that he'd still rather be at Tony's side.

* * *

For nearly two weeks, Loki sets his plans aside and pretends he has nothing better to do than argue with sound engineers and condescend to fix teleport boxes. He looks over stage layouts and watches acrobats practice, accompanied by the ambitious scriptwriter explaining what she has in mind and asking if it's possible and what he thinks about it. He stops by the stables in the basements of Excalibur, just to remind the herd that he's one of their people. He stays to talk with Hiromu, who is one of the more unobjectionable humans that he's met, being more a horse inside anyway. The horsemistress tells him that Kodi has stumbled and torn a muscle, and Loki takes over grooming the wounded horse for a few minutes while the small woman asks if he'll teach the newest reserve not to run away from illusory fire.

That would be an excellent distraction were it not that it reminds him so very much of raising and training Sleipnir – _Midgard has the story wrong,_ mind _._ Loki's going to find whoever passed on that rumor all the way here and introduce him to just how hard an eight-legged horse can kick, especially an intelligent one who understands spoken words and is protective of his people. More than once Loki finds himself leaning against Bulba's side with his fists clenched in the horse's brown-and-white mane, remembering just how much he misses home.

And every time he turns around, someone has turned a television on, or has left a magazine lying around, or is chattering with their equally awestruck friends; it's _Iron Man, Iron Man_ from all corners.

Tony's texting him at least once a day with insights – or, at least, thoughts.

Two days ago was _there's an action figure! pepper wants to sue, but c'mon._

Yesterday's text was _suit is not made for backflips, i'm not sorry and i learned nothing!_

Today's, early in the morning and Loki hadn't been awake, turned out to be _serious talk about NK is seriously too weird to be boring but mostly sad, they couldn't hit the floor if they pissed at it, place has problems with their problems, R & NSC did not appreciate this assessment_.

He's been trying to figure out the history of Midgard, so Loki had decoded that eventually. He'd then spent several hours on his computer – nicked out of a lost and found box, and pawed at with magic until it let him in – reading everything he could find so he could send back _I don't believe any of this I'm reading_.

 _believe it!_ Tony replies later. _wish you were here nope wish I was there._

* * *

It's late everywhere, outside in Las Vegas and inside Loki's traveling room, where he's sprawled out across his furs carefully carving tiny runes into the leather of a bracelet not unlike his own. The stylus was forged long ago in Svartalfheim and is probably too rare a relic to be used for the whims of exile princes, but that is not at all his problem. It has a point too fine to be seen, perfect for spellwork permanent enough for him to walk away from and leave to be set alight by others. There's only a tiny, precise shimmer in the air as it meets the surface.

A formless ball of light hovers above Loki's head so he can see to work, but the rest of the room is dark. The false window that looks out on a memory – and the future – is full of the stars of home, warm and hospitable firelight burning in glimpses from windows scattered through the city, the shapes of it more implied than seen.

"And did you?" he asks idly.

" _No, see, the senator brought his grandkids along, right?"_ Tony's voice says from the phone lying where Loki had dropped it. _"And no one was really watching them, because, well –"_

"Because everyone was watching you."

" _You say that like it's a bad thing! So they climbed up to the balcony around the dome, and started throwing things at the suit. Handfuls of gravel, I think. Maybe Cheerios. And everyone freaked, either because they thought the suit would go rogue and vaporize two cutesy little girls, or because it's not a very safe balcony. I seriously thought I was gonna have to rescue them, and Iron Man does not get kittens out of trees. Nuh uh. Iron Man kicks ass and takes names and looks awesome."_

"And flies."

" _And_ flies, _Loki, you have no idea. It's like…you ever driven really fast in a car, like, stupid-fast?"_

He's dived from the sky on falcon wings, and flown skiffs in ways they were never intended to turn. He's crashed them a couple of times, leaping clear at the last moment. He crashed one into Thor once, slightly on purpose, although he'd denied any such intent; that was a _great_ day. "I've been in a car with _you_ driving stupid-fast."

" _Oh right. It's like that, only better. Anyway, obviously I didn't blow the kids up by mistake, because JARVIS and I don't make mistakes like that. I flew up and said hi, also cut it the hell out, girls, only not in those words. They didn't get that there was a guy inside the suit, they just thought it was a robot. Clearly no one's let them watch_ Terminator _yet."_

"So you had fun." Loki turns the bracelet around in his free hand and starts thinking about the runes for the clasp. It's a rare, strange pleasure, lately, talking just to talk about nothing at all.

" _I got to watch a senator's head nearly explode. Happens around me a lot, you think they'd learn. So yeah."_

There's something irrepressible about the engineer, and more than a bit charming; Loki is quietly grateful that battle has honed his mortal lover rather than shattering him. He enjoys Tony's disrespect for authority even though Loki is, himself, Authority – or should be. Asgard's rulers are near-absolute monarchs, the throne ancient and deep-seated, the adjacent Realms long since subdued or allied with. The traditions are carved into the hearts of Asgard's people, the royal family's place unquestioned, and the wars that shattered worlds are over.

But that could change, if Loki falters now – gives up, gives in, is himself subdued – and leaves that balance to fall into his brother's hands someday. "Where to next?"

" _Beats me. I want to go home and see how the contractors are doing with the remodel. If I knew trashing the shop would get me more space, I would have done it years ago. Can't wait to show you. Are you sure your phone won't accept pictures?"_

"You're the one who understands it. You tell me."

" _Right. Need to get you an upgraded version. Or an email address, Loki, c'mon…"_

"No, Tony. I'll see the new workshop when you return."

" _Totally. Even if it's not done by then."_ Tony taps his fingers against the arc reactor. Loki recognizes that sound even faintly, even through the phone. _"But we might be on the road a while longer. Pepper keeps rewriting the schedule, and Rhodey's talking about war zones when he thinks I'm not listening. Apparently the suit scares the shit out of people, so hell yeah, that was the point."_

Loki switches the stylus off – a thought and it responds, not his magic but it's made to be used – and sets it and the bracelet aside. Without looking up, he flicks his fingers at the light and it dims in response, flowing back towards one of the torches along the walls where unreal flames sometimes burn.

Asgard's night gleams off the casing of the phone that Tony gave him, that's not to be thrown away – until the day when it must be left behind forever, but not tonight – and Loki rolls over onto his back, folding his hands beneath his head and lying still.

" _You still there?"_ Tony says after a minute.

"I'm here."

That's the problem, isn't it?

" _Working on something?"_

"I was. Now I'm not." He can hear the dull note in his voice. Maybe the phone won't transmit it clearly.

"' _kay, wrong question. You okay?"_

Honesty gets the better of him, for once. "I don't know."

Tony's the one who falls silent, this time. Loki doesn't make any effort to break it.

" _Lots going on,"_ his lover says. _"Big changes. But we're gonna be okay, right? Actually, there's this thing I'm kicking around right now, might change things even further, but I think you'll like it. Wanna tell you about it in person, though."_

Loki turns his head just a bit, to look at the phone. And then at Asgard, glowing just out of reach.

"All right." _Home_.

He smiles, even knowing Tony can't see it. It's a good thing Tony can't see this room. He'd love it, true; he'd wonder at it and be amazed, but he'd ask questions Loki has been very careful to keep him from asking, if only by handing him answers he's not ready to accept. "Until then…you know Treasure Island? And that pirate ship of theirs?"

* * *

The door to the basement workshop opens at his touch, and not because he's bespelled it into doing so, but because he's allowed here and welcome and wanted.

Pepper had called out to him in greeting from among a scattering of devices, one hand raised to her ear to mute the one that sits there and listens. "Oh, there you are," she'd said, a note of relief humming through her distracted air. "Maybe you can calm him down enough to tell the rest of us what he's so excited about. Or knock him over and sit on him, since you're bigger than he is."

"It's always an option," Loki had replied, smiling not entirely in jest.

The workshop has always been a place of purposeful disorder, the clutter of a happy, busy mind with the ability to indulge itself at length, and it's become familiar, with pleasant memories outnumbering the ones that burn white-hot and frightened through him still. It's always changing as Tony moves things around and adds new toys and buries himself in various projects of creation and repair. Now it's expanding, and the debris of hasty construction spills from the hatches to the new spaces, left ajar.

Loki still doesn't know many of the tools by name, and he identifies them more by their functions as he's seen them used. There's the one for holding tightly, the many for removing bolts and fasteners to lay a larger piece open, those for cleaning, these for tightening, the others for welding metal, the one a little further into the room for casting molds, and there are more hidden in spaces beneath the floor. The drafting table, not unlike the images Loki uses to shape his own creations, which is indeed for shaping things not yet made. The seemingly endless drawers, many unlabeled, others graced with names like _scrap_ and _reciprocators_ and _bits of stuff_ and _solenoids_ and _oh god floppy discs why_ ; as usual, several have been pulled open and left hanging like the tongues of insolent children.

Added to this, under the clear lights that make the entire room seem like there are windows somewhere pouring in sunlight, are boxes torn open and discarded, worktables pulled out of alignment to make space for the construction beyond, an upturned wheeled chair that DUM-E is trying to maneuver around to trundle over to the door to greet Loki as someone the bot recognizes. They fascinate each other, the robots and the exile prince. DUM-E is, for some reason, clinging tightly to a fire extinguisher, and Loki carefully redirects the nozzle away from himself before laying a hand on the machine's "head" in reply.

DUM-E whistles and beeps in a charming simulacrum of happiness, and trundles into a corner between a computer workstation and a pile of couch cushions, where it promptly gets stuck.

"– no, you're not listening to me, this is constant thrust. This is _it_. I'm talking about the _solution_ , boys and girls, or at least the start of it. When's the deadline for _Discovery_? Three years? I'm talking about filling the gap before it even opens, at minimum. We can even keep the countdown if you want. Everyone loves the countdown. Hang on."

Tony props his feet up on his worktable and leans back in his chair, peering around the chaos as he looks for the source of the sound, and whether that irrepressible grin is for the baffled bot or for the magician picking his way through the debris of Tony at work, careful step by careful step, Loki can't be sure. The smile warms him anyway, just to see it, and he fights down the impulse to vault over the lot of the clutter in a single leap. Humans can't do that, and Tony has never seen him move to his full capability, but the way his jaw would fall open at the sight…

"JARVIS, mute a sec, willya?" His eyes flick down to the computer screen again. "Thanks. Hey, you."

That smile is definitely for Loki.

"Conference call. So…"

The words go unspoken but Loki understands their meaning – _people could see and ask questions._ "I'm not certain I could get over to anywhere they could see in the first place," he answers, and offers, "I'll stay where they can't see me."

"Ah, most of it can be climbed on." Tony waves a dismissive hand. "You should know. But yeah, probably safer. Hang on, I'm gonna yell at these guys until they give up and do what I want them to, because I'm right, and anyway, it's a great idea."

He turns back to the screen and says, "Okay, J, they can talk again. Actually, no, they can listen," and goes right into, "Look, I did the math, break out your slide rules, kids, and keep up –"

Loki tunes out the subsequent argument, which is almost entirely in numbers that relate to each other and interact in what sound like complicated ways. It's a language no innate magic can translate. While he suspects some of the scholars in other Realms could make Midgard's equations look like finger maths, the magician himself is not familiar with such things, being more inclined to magic that works by will and control and as much by instinct as learned reflexes.

Instead, he rescues one of his books, a history this time, from a pile of other tools tossed haphazardly onto a worktable and ignored. Settling down on the couch that lives down here – it's a mystery where the cushions still confounding DUM-E came from, as these are still in place – he tries to find his place in the chronicle of this nation's wars.

He can't focus on it, never mind that he'd been caught up in the drama of the story, most recently an account of the bombardment of a great city that nevertheless endured, and finds himself watching Tony as the man jabs a stylus at the computer screen as if it were a sword. Butterfingers rolls over to crane over Tony's shoulder and whirr inquisitively at the computer, and nearly gets stabbed by the waving stylus.

It's the engineer Loki needs, clever and creative and easily tempted by the possibility of technology beyond his, but the ordeal of the past few months has stripped something away from that man, reshaping him like whittled wood into something with an unyielding core.

Tony has _no_ idea how strongly the knowledge of that warrior spirit within him has affected Loki; he caught his hands trembling once, at the thought of his mortal lover flying into battle, and facing it, and striking his enemies down. Mortal, fragile, and yet – and yet! That contradiction fascinates him more than he can understand.

Oh, he would have crossed worlds for intelligence that blazes so brightly and desire that laughs on the edge, and that rises from the shadows of death to fight. The same mortal body that once trembled at a long fall now can fly without wings or magic, only his own intelligence and creativity to bear him and protect him and make him into a warrior who might be able to stand beside Loki in battle, near his equal even there –

And yet Loki is trapped here against his will, and if all goes as he means it to, they will never fight side by side, and that taints it all.

Still, he watches, for the pleasure of it.

"Look," Tony finally says, "the math checks out. So heads up. I'm ready to go for this, and I can. I'll get authorization like that." He snaps his fingers. "And I'll paint it red and gold all over, you can't call that advertising, c'mon. Don't be ridiculous. Or we could, you know, talk about this. Think it over. Call me. Going now."

The screen must switch off, because Tony tosses his stylus away without bothering about where it lands and raises his hands above his head in a stretch.

"Dammit," he says. "Sitting still. Can't do it. Too excited." Suiting actions to words, he leaps to his feet and reaches over to wave a hand through the projections above the drafting table, making the simulation of the Iron Man helmet grow and open to show the tiny circuits within. Tony collapses it again, reopens it, collapses it and leaves it stuck between phases. "That's my head right now."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Loki says dryly, looking up from the London Blitz again. The besieged army has quickly and understandably grown tired of spelling the long German word for _vengeance weapon_ and have started calling it a V-1 instead. Clearly the desire to abbreviate things is inherent to all engineers.

Tony picks up a coffee mug, tips it back and forth, decides that nothing in it is drinkable and sets it aside again. "That's because it's a surprise," he declares. The space around the couch and television and small kitchen are slightly set apart from the rest of the workshop and so are mostly clear of engineering and construction chaos. "C'mere a second? The surprise is for you, I guess. Well, it's for you first."

Loki could have sworn that his next breath had been taken on Jotunheim, for something sharp-edged and dark slithers into his chest and wraps itself around his spine. But Tony reaches out and catches his hands, both of them, and turns his face up to Loki's, beaming.

"Okay. So. The company isn't – I'm not – making weapons anymore, right? No more, not ever."

"The world knows this, pet, you said it loudly and with illustrations of how much you meant it."

"Yeah, and I know you never cared, or if you did you didn't say anything –" Loki didn't care; what were Midgard's wars to him, other than stories, until his lover was drawn into one and reforged there?

"But all those people and me, we've got to do something, and I love being Iron Man, but company-wise, that's publicity, and…I'm off the point. Don't give me that look. The point is, I've been thinking. JARVIS said a thing, and I forgot about it because he was joking, and also because I'd just crashed through four stories of very solid house onto my armored ass like an idiot who forgot how much the suit masses. But I had an idea, and I think you're going to like it."

For a moment, Loki wants to keep Tony here forever, full of ideas, caught up in inspiration, all that joy turned towards him with a glow he could bask in.

"So, what I'm saying is, how'd you like to go to Mars for real, spaceman?"

Long practice at his father's court and in command of armies keeps everything that slams into him from showing on his face. Part of him wants to laugh aloud as pieces click into place, as a whisper dropped casually into an ear comes echoing back in a new and finer form, as a die cast years ago to bounce and ricochet trembles on its vertex, moments from toppling, its verdict immutable.

At the same time, there's something terribly ragged and empty within him, like a spear has torn straight through him and the wind between worlds has descended upon him like one of his mother's enchanted needles, pulling the endless Void in its wake to bind Loki's heart back where it belongs.

But his lover's face is shining, full of hope and affection and excitement and the same disbelieving stifled laughter that beats its wings against Loki's throat, the sound of a longed-for dream nearly within reach.

And that – that is what matters. Loki can hold onto that and warm himself against it for just a little longer, as Tony talks about "constant thrust not dependent on fuel, Loki, that's what breaks the tyranny of the rocket equation! The repulsors can run off the arc reactor, or an arc reactor, at least, guess I will have to build more, and they'll keep pushing a little all the way until the midpoint, rather than one big push at launch plus whatever gravity assists the trajectory can swing – get it?"

Loki doesn't get it, but Tony goes on anyway, so maybe he wasn't meant to. His lover hasn't let go of his hands. Tony will feel them shaking, wonder why…except it's clear that Tony can't see anything but the vision before his eyes.

"Even a small acceleration adds up over time, as long as it keeps pushing. That's what the repulsors _do_. Holy shit, Loki, I think I invented the impulse engine! Build slightly bigger ones into spaceships – we're going to build spaceships, I got chills just saying that! – and a ship that ran on arc reactors wouldn't have to tote hundreds of thousands of gallons of fuel around. If we're just going to Mars – ha, listen to that already, _just_ going to Mars – that's doable. The math says so, anyway."

 _I did this,_ Loki thinks, because for two years and more he has been saying _space_ in answer to every question about where he comes from, and that idea has been in the back of Tony's mind all along, just for this moment, and the next, if he takes that step.

 _I cannot undo it, but I can stop._

"…and we're going to have to figure out if the repulsors even work in a vacuum, which is one of the many reasons I'm playing phone tag with NASA. Making vacuum chambers big enough to test in that accurately replicate even orbital conditions would be a pain in the ass, even more so than falling through the roof, and I should know, I've done both. Hell, maybe we won't even bother. Just piggyback on the next satellite launch, and test remotely. But seriously, NASA can get out of the way or they can get on board, and I think they're going to get on board."

 _No. No, I cannot._

"I'm probably – well, someone's probably, maybe shouldn't be me – going to have to talk to Congress, which is _uggghh_ –" Tony makes a face and rolls his head around on his shoulders extravagantly, and Loki smiles for him, since he's expected to. "They're finicky about things like that. But clean and affordable space travel! Do you know how much rocket fuel costs?" He doesn't stop for an answer. " _So much_ , Loki, and you need so much of it just to get to LEO…that's low earth orbit, by the way. Can I swap out some of your fantasies for sci-fi, just so you know the terms? No, I'll teach you, it'll be fun."

 _I have to go home and keep Thor from tearing Asgard apart someday._

Tony's not slowing down, caught up and exhilarated, and Loki is holding on to _his_ hands now, how did that happen? "And I know you saw the news, because we talked about it. People are shutting the hell up and backing off, and maybe the cease-fire will only last until someone sneezes wrong, but maybe we can do something _better_ until then."

 _I don't belong here._

"And turning SI into a _space_ industry, at least part of it, solves so many problems with what I'm going to do with all these weapons-making technicians and facilities and designers. We'll just redirect their launch trajectories and tell 'em not to make the things blow up. They're all good nerds anyway, most of them, and hell, we got our astronauts out of the Air Force in the first place, so I can even sell this to Rhodey."

 _I don't belong with you._

"This is making sense, right? Tell me I'm not crazy, Loki, and we'll all have a family meeting about this tomorrow if Rhodey can make it, and throw a giant press conference next week or something. Maybe some reporter will actually cream their pants this time."

Tony laughs. "I've been waiting for that to happen, actually. Sometimes it's great being me, I can stare at people's crotches and no one's at all surprised."

 _I want to go home. I want_ my _family, and you didn't even hear what you just said, and you're wrong…_

"Also, we'll have to hire something like half the planet to kit out the ship for what we'll need to actually set up camp on Mars. The stocks will go stratospheric and the Board of Directors will probably give me a medal, and then I can hire you for real. Well, put a title on you, anyway, and then I can actually take you out to real dinner once in a while."

 _I have a duty to my world, and my kingdom. I was meant to rule. I was promised. And it's all I've ever wanted…_

"Because no one would be surprised at that, and we can tell the tabloids to take a flying leap. C'mon, you've got that suit, and _my_ suit is still my favorite but that sharp black one is a close second. When do I get to see you all dressed up again? Talk to me here."

 _I need to…_

"…I haven't stopped talking in a while, have I?" Tony realizes.

Loki manages to smile at him, amused and fond and happy to see his lover happy, even as the sharp-edged pieces of things slot into place around him. Soon he must wear armor as unyielding and imperturbable as Tony's around his treacherous, seduced heart, ward himself again against _caring_ , but for the moment…

He should enjoy this, while he still can.

"I'm not sure you've been breathing," says Loki, and hears the real laughter in his voice.

"No, I'm a big fan of breathing these days," Tony answers, and finally lets go so he can put a hand over the arc reactor, blue disc visible through his shirt. He's grown so much more comfortable with it, learning not to shy away from a trusted hand that happens to brush across his chest, beginning to treat it as the badge of victory it is, a survivor's scar. "Also _coffee_ …"

He picks up the nearest mug, bright red and chipped, in a burst of movement, all but racing towards the waiting machine on the small countertop, green light glowing steadily.

Absentmindedly, Loki follows him, body moving thoughtlessly and on instinct as the longed-for shock rings through him. He wasn't ready for it after all, despite laying the path himself, and he steels himself to push just a little further. He's barely aware of the textures of ceramic and metal against his hands, or of the sound of water, until a strange, rhythmic sound, almost hollow, breaks into the thoughts and desires at war with each other within his skull.

He blinks, and realizes that the sound is Tony kicking his heels against the cabinets. The man is perched on the surface of the countertop with a different coffee mug in his hands, from which no steam rises. There are droplets of water on Loki's hand where the impressions of the mug's jagged handle linger against his palm. The sink at his back has been turned on recently, draining around the upturned red mug it contains.

"Oh my _god,_ " Tony complains. "Pepper is a bad influence on you. I'm no longer glad you like each other. Ganging _up_ on me, dammit."

But he drinks the water.

Loki can't deal with what just happened, but he doesn't have to, because Tony starts talking again, a bit slower, a bit more calmly. "Do you like it? I was working on fixing the icing problem a couple of weeks ago, and I remembered JARVIS saying I'd have to do that if I wanted to visit other planets. And I thought of you. I mean, there are other reasons…most of which I think I told you…but I thought of those afterwards. But Obie –"

The name catches in his throat, and he flinches, and Loki's instincts _roar_ , cheated of their right to hurt the man who hurts _his Tony_ still. In motion before he can stop himself, he manages to turn the possessive, claiming lunge into an offer of an embrace, and his lover rests his head against his shoulder as Loki gives into the impulse to hold on to him.

While he can.

"– said," Tony resumes after a few moments, hands wrapped around his mug of water, "that this wasn't one of my space games. And…fuck him. I'm making it one."

While he can, while he can… Loki kisses his friend's, his lover's, hair and drinks in the scent of him. "Quite right."

Still shaken – Loki can feel it from the way Tony breathes – he asks, "You're coming with me, right?"

 _I was wrong, my warrior. I wasn't clever enough to bring you through this unharmed. Forgive me._

And for the first time, Loki lies to him.

"Of course."

Tony laughs, trembling. "Should've let me have that coffee. Caffeine crash."

"Finish the water, and then you can drink whatever horrible ooze you desire."

"Bossy," his lover scolds him without malice, sliding down from the countertop as Loki steps away. "That's for hangovers. Not like you'd know, spaceman. And don't hate on coffee, you like the way it smells. But that's a yes, right? We're going to space!"

Tony raises the emptying mug towards him in a toast. "It's a long way to go, so we'd better get started."

"Another world," Loki says, tasting the irony like blood. "Yes. I want that very much. Although it does seem rather the long way around."

As he kicks things aside carelessly, trying to forge his way back towards his workspace, Tony calls back, "It's _space_ , Loki, there aren't any shortcuts. That's the definition of space. Mathematically. I think. I doodled robots through a lot of higher mathematical theory, which might be why DUM-E is _still stuck in the corner_ , I am donating you for scrap, you useless pile of bolts…"

 _I need to go home. I need to go home. What have I worked my whole life for, if not to keep shining Asgard safe from_ all _who threaten her…_

 _No matter what I must sacrifice._

* * *

"Hey," Tony says a few minutes later, freezing with one hand raised over the drafting table, skeleton of a spaceship taking shape. "Hang on. Wait a second." He reconsiders. "Wait _eight_ damn seconds. What did you just say?"

 _What's the Midgardian phrase?_ Loki muses to himself, as the last ricocheting piece strikes its mark.

 _Gotcha._

* * *

 _To be continued._


	9. Pay It Forward

ON WITH THE SHOW!

 **Chapter Nine: Pay It Forward**

Tony has his foot down on the accelerator of the out-of-control vehicle that is his life, and escape velocity is almost within his reach, and _god_ , he's having so much fun.

He can't stay stuck to the podium and its microphones, but that's fine, he brought his own. It was the work of a moment and a tiny bit of lock-picking to jack the little device into the sound box. And anyway, he doesn't need it – a small army of increasingly familiar faces is staring up at him as he paces around, nearly bouncing in the sneakers he insisted on wearing because "Nobody cares, Pep".

He _owns_ this room.

"…which is why, as of today, I am committing the collected talent and resources of Stark Industries, everything that was used for war and destruction, to a new goal," he says, and beams out at the spellbound room. That guy in the front row is actually holding his breath.

Tony's choking down the urge to laugh wildly, because how did he get here? How did he go from a starstruck kid sitting through every last second of the credits of _Star Wars_ in the hope that it'd start again, to standing before every media outlet that could jam someone into this oversized room, holding the future in his hands and over his heart, ready to let it go and fly? "We're going to Mars, people."

The room explodes, but in a good way.

Questions pour in from all directions, and somewhere in the corner a fight breaks out between the lady from CNN and that guy from ABC as their respective support staffs push each other aside, trying to get a word in edgeways.

"How are you planning –"

"Have you gotten authorization –"

"– NASA –"

"– appropriate use of resources for a major company –"

"– international treaties –"

"– the _economy_ –"

"– timetables –"

"– really serious?"

"Hey, I like that question," Tony seizes on the last one, if only because her incredulous tone is so very, very scandalized. "Foxy newsy lady gets the floor. Bring it on, one question before the sharks behind you get you, make it good."

She doesn't appreciate the nickname, but she's carrying around a badge that reads FOX where he can see it, so what does she think is gonna happen? "Mr. Stark," she says, looking offended, "is this an official company policy, or a personal project?"

"That's funny, I could have sworn your exact words were _are you really serious_ ," Tony tosses back at her. "And I am really serious, and I just spent nearly ten hours arguing with the SI Board of Directors. I won, by the way. So it's an official policy. We're turning our missiles into rockets and heading for space. Next!"

There is nothing any of them can say to ruin his momentum at this point; he's just made jaws drop _again_. Some of the press conference veterans are going to hurt themselves with how much exercise their jaws are getting. Their eyes and the eyes of the world beyond, glued to him and awestruck, are like sunlight, like a caffeine buzz in that moment when everything becomes clear.

He's off the defensive for good and forever, and it's wonderful. When people look at him now, he's not the Merchant of Death anymore, he's _Iron Man_ and a hero, rather than someone making his reputation on war. He doesn't have to realize halfway through an interview that someone's setting him up to look cruel, or callous, or indifferent, because it's not about the weapons anymore.

It's a performance, as he picks waving hands out of the crowd based on if he likes their ties or not, or if they're cute, or if he remembers seeing them at previous interviews and knows he didn't call on them recently.

And that's fine. He's been as low as he's ever going to be. Any lower, and he doesn't think he could survive it; any lower, and his family might not be able to pull him out. So surely there's nowhere left to go but up, up, up, and away.

Maybe he's a freak show, with the arc reactor pulsing in his chest like a second metallic and monstrous heart, but he's going to bring the weight of that down on the heads of all his ghosts and show them he's stronger than them.

"Mr. Stark," a guy with a blog asks, "I'm sure NASA's delighted to have you out there, but Stark Industries has always been a weapons company. How can you promise us that this isn't the Eighties and Star Wars all over again, that Mars today isn't going to become warships tomorrow, and do you really think the rest of the world is going to sit still and applaud while an American company takes over out there?"

Tony snaps his fingers, points at blog guy. "Actually, really good questions all around. I'm talking to NASA. Sometimes I'm talking _over_ NASA, but we'll sort it out. And if there's competition out there, if someone wants to race me to Mars, bring it on. We'll learn from each other. There's lots of space out there to explore."

Of _course_ there's going to be competition. Right this very second, three dozen CEOs and two dozen governments are on the phone screaming at technical people and strategic operations officers, demanding to know why _their_ company and/or space agency hasn't done this first.

But Tony has the arc reactor.

And possibly – _maybe_ – something even closer to impossible. If, and that's a big _if_ , it works.

"Look," he resumes, "we're not gonna build the Death Star. Or a star destroyer." He knows that's not what the blogger was talking about; he meant Reagan's boondoggles, but the joke's too good to pass up. "But we built an X-Wing a couple years back. I still have the t-shirt. So, time to even the score a bit and start building the Enterprise. Or at least _Serenity_."

Press people blink. Tony rolls his eyes.

"Ask the nearest screaming nerd." He picks a camera, looks it straight in its flat black eye, points at it. "I'm talking to _you_ , honey, I could hear that from here."

Somewhere, some fangirl has just swooned. He knows it.

"But _how?_ " a somewhat taken-aback woman from _Time_ wants to know.

"The collective creative power and resources of Stark Industries will get back to you on that," Tony assures her. "Possibly with a shopping list and a help wanted flyer."

From the back of the room, Pepper looks up from her tablet and catches his eye. She's been monitoring the online reaction – and, if he knows Pepper Potts, trying not to pull faces at her boss' grandstanding. She smiles very slightly at him and nods.

Excellent.

Hey, someone from Al Jazeera got here, great. "So Stark Industries is hiring?" the woman in the tidy suit asks.

"If you've got a working idea, we want to hear it," says Tony, meaning every word. "But it had better be good, because I reserve the right to point and laugh at you."

 _And then,_ he thinks, _there's Loki._

He can't get over how _stunned_ Loki had looked, while Tony rattled on about his space dreams. Manic as he'd been, Tony had noticed the shock in the eyes of his usually unflappable magician, and there had been two or three points where he'd expected to be interrupted by some bitingly sarcastic comment and instead been met only by silence.

Sometime soon, Tony needs to ask himself what he really believes. He's seen and failed to understand the magic trick, and wondered at it, but surely it's just a magic trick. There's ahead of the curve, like Loki's holograms, and then there's out of this world. And even if long-range teleportation is possible, would it really take the form of a purposely anonymous Vegas magician, charming and dangerous and deceptive, on the run from some past he won't explain, and a box Tony could pick up and hold in one open hand?

Then again, Loki is many things, but he's _not boring_.

Maybe now, if he's lucky, Tony will get to find out what Loki's really capable of. More than ever, he knows he has no idea.

Finally, someone asks the showstopping question, which is: "But why?"

Tony has been leaning against the podium as the questioning goes on, but now he steps away from it again, dropping his arms to his sides and turning to face the room. He knows the arc reactor is visible through his shirt.

Three months after he'd first stood up in front of a different room and some of these same people, and tossed the polite lies and the cover story aside and stood by his truth, what _he knew_ was right, he's not ashamed of it anymore.

And again, he speaks from the heart.

"I once told a beautiful woman that the day the world no longer needed weapons, I'd shut everything down and make baby bottles."

Off to one side, the beautiful woman – Charlotte? Carolyn? Christine, she's Christine – beams like sunrise, and for a moment she presses her voice recorder against her chest in a tiny, flattered gesture. Lovely woman, stubborn and intelligent, and he owes her one for calling him to task about the weapons Stane funneled off to terrorists. The memory of her in that party dress is nice, but she's way outclassed. Tony already has the most maddening, fascinating, gorgeous person on the planet sharing his bed and occasionally rescuing his dumb ass, and he's going to hold on to all of that as tight as he can.

"We're not quite there yet," Tony goes on, "but we're getting there. And in the meantime, we're going to space. And look –"

He feels himself go off on a tangent, and completely does not care. "– we could choose to go to the moon because it is hard, although I'm just gonna skip all the dick-measuring with the Soviets. We seem to be mostly out of those anyway. Um. Soviets, I mean. Got plenty of the other thing running around."

It gets a laugh.

"And hey, there's been a lot of talk about Iron Man as a superhero. But you know what? I'm just a guy with money and some engineering skills and a mad-on for showing off. And I got lucky – I've got people who've got my back. But the guys who went up there, and the people who got them there? _They_ were heroes. At least I know my tin can is going to hold together," he adds.

Faces stare up at him, enraptured. He can't wait to see the headlines. Better give them more to chew on, because those expressions are priceless – even Pepper's. He's _finally_ caught her rolling her eyes. This is the…sixth-best day. And across the world, there are maybe _millions_ of people making the exact same faces, because of him.

It's a rush.

"They didn't know that, and they went anyway. So what's keeping us here? Gravity?" If the censors back at the news studios aren't paying attention, that's not his problem – "Fuck gravity. Fighting over who gets the other side of that hill? It's a hill. It'll be there tomorrow, unless you dumbnuts blow it up. Or we could go to Mars, not because it is easy, but because it is _awesome._ "

There is a long, perfect silence.

"Yes," Tony agrees with himself, nodding. "So. Any more questions?"

* * *

For nearly three weeks, he seems to be everywhere except home. The closest he gets is the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, where he ends up wandering through their ballistic missiles museum and unable to explain to any of these strangers why he can't stop laughing. He snaps a picture of the Loki anti-aircraft missile system from the 1940s and, not for the first or last time, regrets that he hasn't yet managed to upgrade _his_ Loki's phone to something that accepts pictures.

Instead, he texts _i'm at least in california can i see you i miss you_ while an auditorium full of JPL geniuses argues about trajectories for the deep-space reactor engine tests. Dr. Sucharitkul is insistent that they're not going to be the idiots who blindly hurl an untested projectile out into the asteroid belt, knock something off its nice, stable orbit, and send it onto a new path that will eventually cross Earth's neighborhood and potentially punch another hole in the Yucatan.

 _I'd like that_ , his phone buzzes at the tail end of a spirited proposal by Dr. Kearns and her graduate students to take out the Apophis asteroid, while they're on the subject, and preempt 2036 or 2068 altogether.

"I'm not responsible for what you people do with my name, pet," Loki says later, drowsily amused. "Or the stories you attach to it."

Tony traces a hand over his bare stomach, savoring the warmth of his skin and the feeling of breath and life moving beneath. There's a very faint scar there. "Is there a story attached to this one?"

His lover licks his lips, and Tony's heart jumps. So do other organs.

"What would you do to find out?" Loki asks, low and dangerous and tempting, his eyes laughing.

It's _very_ hard to get out of bed the next morning.

* * *

After that he's off to Arizona to tour Biosphere 2, back up and running again, sort of; the nearby Mars Society has a conflict, which is polite-speak for "busy putting together the best proposal we can, hold the phone, we'll get back to you once the party has died down and we've gotten our voices back from all the screaming we're doing". The University of Arizona is trying to get it up and running again, but they're still working on chasing out the ants. Most of the records of the two mission attempts have been preserved, so that's a start, and there's no shortage of people who want to talk to him about life support systems and carbon dioxide scrubbers and the woes of quick-set concrete.

Pepper's in her element, and Tony watches her at work with pride. She's the one who's good at listening to people for five minutes and knowing whether they should be brought on board, and who to contact next about them, and what department or subcompany of the vast and sprawling Stark Industries empire they'll be most suited to. Hell, Tony doesn't know half of what she does about the company, and he's supposedly the CEO. She's so much better at it.

He just doesn't want to give her up. The thought of sending her away, even if it's letting her go to flourish and be better, feels like trying to cut off his own foot. Pepper has been at his side for fifteen years, and they know each other. He knows where her boundaries are, what he can and can't joke about (shoes are fine, family histories are off limits, if he ever again mentions the thing with the jellyfish, she will string him up by his testicles and the paperwork for that will all be in order and signed in triplicate.)

She understands that he's going to have wild days where everyone is his friend and nothing can touch him, and then tomorrow he might not be able to leave the lab. She not only forgave Tony for running off to Vegas and falling for a magician – and a _guy –_ she made peace with Loki instead of fighting him, made Loki an ally somehow instead of an enemy _._

Pepper reminds him to eat. She shuts down some of his more outrageous experiments with hats and/or pyrotechnics with equal aplomb. And what is his Social Security Number, anyway, since apparently that's important?

It's selfish and stupid, but she's his.

By the time they leave Oracle and Biosphere 2, Tony's convinced that the Stark Industries Space Race needs a psychology department. And a catchier name.

"We could ask for suggestions on the Internet," he says as Happy starts the car, because this sounds like a great idea.

"No, Tony," Pepper says flatly.

"Or I could come up with something."

"I'll speak to Marketing."

When she's not watching, Tony sets up an unofficial _name Tony Stark's crazy Mars mission_ poll.

The submissions are classic Internet – which is to say, _terrible._

Pepper's smart about things like that.

* * *

Talking to Congress about getting permission to do tests in space goes…about as well as can be expected. Congress likes words like _privately funded_ , but they get all foamy-mouthed about phrases like _tests in space_.

This presents a problem, but not as much as Rhodey kicking him under the table, on average, every seventeen seconds. By the end of the hearing, Tony has half a dozen new mortal enemies, a lovely bruise on his calf, and a high degree of confidence the committee is going to authorize the Mars project…next year. Maybe. Or the year after that. If Stark Industries does the paperwork and inspections right and never, ever asks for any taxpayer money.

The collective Legal Department has a major nervous breakdown. Within a week, Pepper has hired about a hundred and fifty replacements. Most of that time is taken up with background checks of the piles and piles of applicants.

"She's cute," Tony says, leaning over the back of Pepper's seat as the plane takes them away to another round of office buildings and laboratories and proving grounds, and maybe that impact crater off on that Canadian Arctic island where the Haughton-Mars Project has been camping out since ninety-seven. He reaches past her and scrolls through the résumé in question. There are pictures somewhat above and beyond the ordinary job application, thanks to the magic of background checks. "A former model and dancer? I believe it. We're keeping her, right?"

"Tony," Pepper sighs, "she is potentially a very expensive lawsuit. Not to mention an extremely disastrous breakup. Once was enough."

"Hey, hey, I wasn't going to – I'm just curious. Loki and I are _fine,_ I apologized for being an idiot."

"Oh." Pepper sounds surprised. "Tony, I'm impressed. Well done."

Shit. He hadn't really, now that he thinks about it, not in so many words. But there had been bigger issues, at the time. Tony changes the subject back to its original object, pretty Natalie Rushman. "Does that really say she speaks Latin? Who speaks Latin anymore? If she lies on her application about that, can we still hire her?"

* * *

There are years of equations and manufacturing and experiments ahead, years of things not working right and unanticipated problems and people bursting into tears, slamming doors behind them. It sounds wonderful. And in yet another hotel room, Tony looks out the window and tries to see the stars through city lights, and knows it's all going to be worth it.

For now, as the massive Stark Industries beast changes gears and laboriously twists around into this new form he's dreamed up for it, Tony's job is mostly to sell the idea. And people listen, because it's not just Tony Stark, billionaire engineer, talking.

Now it's Iron Man, superhero, too.

And the story of that, even the bits he feels comfortable sharing, packs a punch much more important than the force the suit can put into a blow.

On the way back from a hastily-scheduled trip to South Korea to talk about a possible breakthrough in medical technology that just needs to catch a break, and ideally a financial backer, Tony ends up speaking at the commencement ceremony of a tiny high school. Because…he can, mostly, and they had the nerve to ask, and the last time he humored people who had dared to ask, he'd ended up meeting Loki.

"So this is what high school graduation looks like," he comments to the school's principal, who's looking at him like she isn't sure he's real. It's being held in the school gym, which must be fairly new, as it doesn't smell of lockers and despair. Their shoes squeak on the floor with all its lines, and the bleachers to either side are filling up quickly. Flags and banners, presumably celebrating sports victories, hang from the walls. There's a basketball caught in the roof up in one corner. Someone has a good arm.

A teacher quick off the mark is checking IDs at the door and requiring graduates to vouch for their parents and families, trying to keep out the newshounds who are following Tony everywhere he goes. But by the time things get started, the room is packed. The school's on-duty police officer has already called the fire marshal, who is busily sending reporters and people with active Twitter accounts outside. She brandishes her badge like it's a full-sized shield, like she's tall and heroic-looking and blond rather than tiny and in her fifties. She still looks like she could chew hubcaps for breakfast.

"You've never been to one? What about your own?" the principal asks tentatively.

"Nope. Homeschooled mostly, my mom and dad hired tutors."

"Well," she rallies, "it's not a grand pageant. But the kids got here, so it matters."

They just want him to talk, and that's something Tony can do. He's been doing nothing but talk, it seems, and he can't wait to get home and tackle that puzzle he's been promised, once he and Loki are together again.

"The thing about almost dying," he says, "is that while it's happening, and after it doesn't, you start thinking about what you want to live for. And about everything you didn't do that still seems important."

Sixty-seven kids in cheap regalia and hats, both a terrible shade of off-purple, stare at him.

"And maybe that's talking to that girl who was in your English class for four years, and you never said more than 'Hi' to her. Maybe that's climbing a mountain for the first time, or speaking up for a cause you believe in. But whatever it is, knowing you won't get to do it, or that you almost lost the chance – that changes things. It puts things in focus. Everything else goes away, and what's left is what matters. And for me, it was –"

 _My family_ , he doesn't say, _Pepper and Loki and Rhodey and Happy, everyone who keeps pulling me out of that grave I keep trying to dive into._

"– the thought that all I'd done with my life was make a fool of myself in public, and make a bunch of money, and invent things that killed people. And I found out that wasn't enough."

He keeps looking at these kids, and wondering if he was ever that innocent. And then remembering that hell, at seventeen _he_ was a raging bundle of hormones and malice and resentment and self-importance and hidden griefs, and that was before the car crash. Why should he assume these kids are any different?

"The physicists say that space is immutable, affected only by gravity, and the math to put something big inside something smaller is enough to give the universe a headache."

But is it, now? Or are the secrets to that hiding behind amused green eyes?

"But in this room, there are entire worlds wrapped up in your heads. And any one of them could wink out at any moment. I've seen it happen. Maybe you have too. Maybe you've seen what a waste it is when all that potential, all those possibilities, go away, and there's no getting them back. So if there's anything I want to tell you, that you should hear, if there's any reason I'm standing up here talking to you, or to myself, because I'm sure someone's asleep under their cap –"

Muted laughter snickers through the gym.

"– it's that we have to make those possibilities real the moment we've got a chance, because there might not be another one. I'm going to Mars," he wraps up his speech before it can get out of control, for once. "I've got no idea where you're going. Find out."

* * *

That's all he's been trying to tell people. That he's come back from the dead twice now, and he owes. _He owes._ And after everything that's happened to him, he wants to give something back.

Howard's legacy was the atom bomb, and yeah, that worked out so great. In the shadow of every nuclear power station there's radiation poisoning, and Fat Man and Little Boy falling like scythes onto Hiroshima and Nagasaki – Tony's been there, he's seen the scars and the shadows. Yes, there's the end of World War II, and the world spared from an immeasurably worse future if things had gone a different way. But in the wake of that was the Cold War, and Mutually Assured Destruction, and all the times the world had avoided becoming a nuclear snowball over any number of red balloons, because the guys with their fingers on the button miraculously didn't have one bad day. Over and over again, for _decades_ , and that's so many kinds of wrong.

Tony's legacy is going to be the _stars._

And yeah, there are as many ways for the Mars shot to go wrong. There's everything that could happen on the way there, or down here in the meantime, and everything that technology could become. Yes, they might muck up Mars the same way they've screwed up Earth. There are the shadows of warships, and star destroyers, and he can only imagine the horror of someone flying a _starship_ into a building.

But that doesn't stop Boeing from building planes.

And it's a dream. A dream of building things, creating instead of destroying. A dream of getting people off this planet before it becomes a nuclear snowball, or drowns.

It's a dream of not just wondering what's out there, or watching from their lonely blue island down here, but going and finding out.

It's a dream of poring over the map of Mars with Loki at his side, laughing and scheming and challenging each other. And of how many times he's seen his lover looking up at the stars, and recognized that desire to reach for them.

* * *

"Seriously, _how_ do you do that?" Tony complains, pausing with his laptop charger held a centimeter from the outlet as he looks up at the sound of the door opening. "I swear, I've been home _five minutes_ , Happy hasn't even gotten the car unloaded, and here you are, and you weren't here a moment ago. How – oh no. Don't say it! Don't you dare, Loki!"

Loki props his shoulder against the doorframe and laughs, spreading one hand out in a shrug before folding it over his chest again. "If you won't accept my answers, pet…"

"That's not an answer, it's a joke." Tony plugs in the laptop just a little bit harder than necessary and leaps to his feet, sprinting towards the door and the view of the sweeping driveway beyond. "Hang on, I'm going to catch you this time –"

The driveway below the wide picture window is empty, as it always is.

"Dammit. Next time." From only a breath away, both of them standing in the doorway, he can't resist the impulse to wind his fingers into a lock of the magician's long hair and tug on it. He smells like something Tony still can't pin down – despite repeated attempts – but that reminds him of a very exotic Scandinavian liquor he never got the name of, and like…not pine, pine is an air freshener…something dark and _wild,_ and the heat that pulses between them. Also a little bit like horses, but it's all good.

"Stop that," Loki scolds him, and kisses him to make him do as he's told, which Tony surrenders to happily. He's never been one for being held, but that Loki's tall enough to enfold him and probably strong enough to pick him up is weirdly erotic. He's not the superhero – hahaha, him, a superhero, _what the fuck_ – in the Iron Man armor here; he doesn't have to stand between Loki and bullets flying at them on a battlefield, or take responsibility for what happens to him. Loki can look after himself, and Tony doesn't have to look after him.

He kind of wants to anyway.

And there's something fluttering in pleasure, deep in his stomach, that Loki _does_ keep coming back, that he's taken time away from his work and his world off in Las Vegas to somehow make his way here. Not like he's been waiting around for Tony to come home, but that he's glad Tony happens to be here anyway.

Not to mention the simple, pure pleasure of being _touched_ , the pleasure of being kissed by someone who knows just how to shut down the Incredible Brain hard and make Tony _want_ to take his mind, his strongest weapon, out of action.

Under news cameras and spotlights and the eyes of starstruck crowds, he's invincible. Here he can surrender, and know that he's safe in Loki's elegant hands.

"I still have no idea how you get around," he murmurs a few minutes later. Somewhere outside the depths of the static still dazing his brain, he's ended up with his back against the wall and his shirt unbuttoned to the waist – actually, he kind of remembers that, quick and precise movements the width of the fabric away, and the way each individual fingerprint's worth of skin had twitched.

He feels the grin more than sees it. "Magic," Loki whispers, and kisses his cheek.

"I hate you," Tony says cheerfully, opening his eyes so Loki can see how much he doesn't mean it. "I keep wanting to just give you one of the cars, except they all say STARK on the license plate, and then, surprise, tabloids in no time flat."

Something occurs to him as he – however reluctantly – gives in to the plaintive call of his laptop demanding authorization to sync up with JARVIS. "Actually, wait, I'm not even sure you know how to drive on the right side of the road."

"It doesn't look too difficult." Loki commandeers one of the bar stools and pulls something tangled and multicolored from his pocket; it looks almost like a ball of string, except in no time at all he's separated it out into its component strands and starts – or resumes – weaving it together, fingers flickering.

"Okay, I have dibs on the driving lessons, somewhere private. I'm getting what you've got against deserts, these days, but two words, man: _Mojave_ and _doughnuts._ " He starts going through the stupid-complicated authentication scheme he dreamed up some less than sober night, which he's _got_ to redesign one of these days. Maybe a fingerprint scanner would be better…

Tony's hands are trembling – he has no idea how that happened – and the computer squawks and kicks him out, making him start all over as Loki murmurs "Doughnuts?" in a tone of absolute incomprehension.

"Hey," he says instead, looking around, "before I forget, was there anyone hanging around while I was gone who looked…out of place? Unusual?"

Loki shoots him the world's most deadpan stare. His braiding fingers don't miss a beat. Blue thread has appeared from somewhere, and Tony could have sworn that there hadn't been blue thread a moment ago. "In Las Vegas? There was a Fire-Eaters' Pride Parade down the Strip yesterday. They brought paper signs. You can imagine how that went. Just after the last time we met, there was a zombie convention – which was not uninteresting, actually, since someone very foolish thought to enlist me to turn an entire floor of the MGM into a haunted house."

" _Oh my god._ Did you? And are there pictures?"

The magician grins as Tony's laptop starts chiming happily. "I helped. And I do not know."

"JARVIS," Tony all but wails, "find me _pictures…_ "

" _Star Trek_ fans turned up in force, and in costume, to protest the closing of their exhibit. With candles. For a week. They sang. I know the _unusual_ I'm watching for, pet, you must be more specific with yours."

Tony sets the laptop aside, eyeing the tangle of thread Loki's weaving together. He can't tell where it's all going, or even how many colors there are, much less what it's supposed to be. Maybe if he's really smooth and nonchalant, he can get close enough to grab it…

"Why?" Loki asks, voice suddenly sharp. "Has someone threatened you?"

It seems like a non-sequitur, and Tony blinks in surprise. "Oh, yeah, of course. I mean, Iron Man, so every country with an army that ever so much as spit at an American uniform is at least muttering about bloody murder. What's that got to do with anything?"

The magician sets his project aside, all his attention on Tony now. "Tony, _how_ out of place? Someone…too unusual…might be one of my enemies, not yours, and if someone's hunting you to get at me, _tell_ me." Loki's indignant tone turns dark. "I will find them first."

For a moment, Tony's breath catches in his throat, but at least this time it's because of that note in his lover's voice, not the shortness of breath he finds himself fighting at odd moments, legacy of the hash the arc reactor casing made of his lungs. That the pure _threat_ , that the _danger_ in Loki's voice turns Tony on should probably be a problem, but to hell with that. It's sexy, and that's that, and he's going to enjoy it.

"No, no," he manages to say on the second attempt, unable to look away from the way Loki's eyes have narrowed, cheekbones even more prominent than usual; there's a skull under that pale skin, and never more obviously so than when Loki's being fierce.

"No, I'm thinking more about SHIELD. They're professional spies, and they've got their eyes on me now. I just don't want them getting their hands on you too."

He hasn't seen SHIELD's director since the night Tony walked into a dark room in his own locked house and realized that it shouldn't have been dark. That someone was standing there, shadow caught between the night beyond the window and the night inside.

 _Fury._

Fury had said he'd started something, maybe before it was ready. That he wouldn't be able to escape the consequences. And he'd said that what Tony had started had a name.

 _The Avengers Initiative._

 _Get out,_ Tony had said. He's got room in his life for exactly one person who speaks in riddles, and Loki's a lot prettier.

Fury had warned him that those words, and the spy-in-chief's presence there, were classified at the highest level, and that Tony would regret mentioning them to anyone. And Loki's already on the run from his own set of problems. Tony doesn't need to set SHIELD on him into the bargain.

"If I don't want to be seen, people don't see me," Loki reassures him, wrapping a hand over his. It's _possibly_ a coincidence that it's the same hand Tony was sidling towards his lover's multicolored network of threads, and now Tony can't make another move without giving himself away. "You know how hard to find I can be. But all right, pet. I'll keep an eye out for them."

Tony snorts, not fully a laugh. "Funny you should say that. I had words with their Director Fury. Tall, solid black guy. Confident, assertive, very _present_ , I guess is the feeling I got off him. Not to be screwed with, so of course I immediately wanted to screw with him extensively. Wears an eyepatch with scars running under it, and a big leather coat hiding probably more guns than you have knives."

Loki's smile twists sideways and shows a bit of teeth, just a hint of the Real Smile. "Oh, I don't know about that," he says. "But I can promise you that if I see any arrogant one-eyed men where they shouldn't be, I will…"

He pauses. Somewhere off behind Tony, his laptop makes the _file transfers complete_ noise. The specs he's copied, the notes he's taken, the names he's gotten, the documents he's been sent, and the pictures he's taken: everything that's going towards Mars someday has all been uploaded to JARVIS.

"… _strongly_ object to their presence," Loki completes his sentence, tone heavy with irony Tony could have detected from the other side of the bay; he was Irony Man _long_ before the suit.

"Good. Just don't get arrested for those knives of yours, okay? I mean, if you do, call me and I'll bail you out, of course, and then get in trouble for trying to hack the police system and erase all their records of you." Loki grins at him, eyes sparkling with matching mischief. "I have all the lawyers and all the hacking skills, and if that doesn't work out, we'll run away and you can teach me all your tricks."

"All of them?" Loki laughs, green gaze meeting his squarely. "Oh, pet, _no one_ knows _all_ my tricks."

Tony very nearly wiggles his eyebrows at him. "Oh yeah? Well, I've just been flying all over the world, so I'm going to go take a shower. You can come too, if you've got any tricks that might apply."

* * *

There's always been more to the workshop than the garage space Tony uses for private projects and ideas that he hasn't gotten the measure of yet. There's a small, JARVIS-controlled fabrication plant, every step of the process handled by cunningly articulated waldos and manipulative devices, no human intervention necessary except for the design phase. That's where the pieces of the Iron Man suit come from, where highly refined alloys are shaped and circuitry is layered into the carefully designed, streamlined components that make up the full suit.

It also has a neat spray-painting attachment; he offered to paint Pepper's nails with it, years ago. She said, very politely and very firmly, "No."

The power plant set _deep_ into the headland under the house is protected by outrageous levels of both highly advanced and unhackably dumb security. But the energy it puts out could keep the house going for months, in the unlikely event of the zombie apocalypse those convention-goers had imagined and then handed over to Loki to bring to…uh, life.

Tony wants pictures of that so bad…

"…so now there's going to be a whole string of workspaces down here," Tony explains, leading his friend down the hall.

Loki's quiet this morning, but that's not unusual. Some days he seems content to just watch everything, the slightest of wrinkles creasing his forehead, as if he's fitting it all together like a complicated machine with no manual. He's staying close, and keeps looking around for Tony. From time to time, the magician will stop and gaze steadily at him as if marking Tony's position on a map, and then go back to whatever he's doing.

And in the meantime, Tony's happy to talk about his plans for the new workshop wing. "I finally learned my lesson about testing the suit near the cars, for one thing. Cars and suit do not mix. That's this one here, look!"

The lights come on when he opens the door and waves a hand inside, illuminating a high-ceilinged, completely open space. The edge of this room came so close to the surface that Tony had paid _so much totally worth it_ money to get that portion of wall turned into an expanse of heavily tinted, bulletproof screen like his bedroom window. It isn't here yet, so the space is filled with scaffolding and tarps, but that's because Tony told them to prioritize the room a few meters down the hall.

"And it's going to retract once the bugs are worked out, so it's basically going to be a garage door. Easy to move test flights outside. There's already a gym in the house, Happy and I spar there sometimes, but the suit would just tear through the ring. Nothing in here I can break, except whatever targets I bring in."

A couple of the doors lead to bathrooms, because hey, sometimes people drink a lot of coffee while they get stuck into a problem and get distracted until the point of desperate and immediate need.

"But this…" Tony puts a hand on the numbered keypad on the right where a handle should be, and it lights up. He taps in the entry code quickly, and reminds himself to change it away from 5-6-5-4, he's _so lost._ "I still want to see your workshop someday, but while I was having new spaces built in, I figured I'd include one for you too. So, this one's yours."

Loki looks at him in a way Tony doesn't understand, although it would probably help if he could actually meet those green eyes. Which he can't. He likes giving things to people he likes, few as they are, but…for Tony, this is the equivalent of cleaning out a drawer and saying, "This is your drawer. Your clothes go here."

 _This is your workshop. Your work that you do goes here. In my home. In my life. Please stay._

He's looking anywhere else, and so he startles when Loki rests a hand on his far shoulder, green-clad arm wrapping around him. "Tony, you didn't need to –"

"Yeah, but I wanted to," he says quickly. "You stood there and offered me the _impossible._ Least I can do is give you room to try. And if I couldn't wonder what you'd come up with to surprise me next time I swung by Vegas, I could at least wonder about what I could do to surprise you. Once I'd used up the Mars idea, I guess. Okay, so…I don't know what kind of space or equipment you need, since you're still way far along the tech indistinguishable from magic spectrum. But…ask, and it's yours."

He's still wondering: what _has_ he missed?

While they wandered Las Vegas, he'd been content to be led by the hand and surprised at every turn. He thought that if he could only bring Loki here, if he could move the pivot of their game out of Las Vegas, Loki's turf, and here to Malibu, where Tony's at home, then that would give him the advantage. And in a way, it had. It had given him the security to finally _ask_ for what he'd wanted since the bright and baffled morning he'd first spoken a strange name to a striking face and sardonic eyes.

But in so many other ways, it hasn't made any difference at all. Loki still doesn't make any sense. But maybe that's just who he is, and while Tony would _love_ to know the secrets, perhaps he can be content to love the mystery.

He opens the door.

The best thing about this lab, Tony's ready to insist, is the bunker built into one wall. Every engineering lab should have a bunker, in case of explosions, and plenty of fire extinguishers. But this one also has an actual airlock between the secure space inside and the open area where, apparently, they're going to build a teleporter.

He's still skeptical, but he almost believes. Enough to include an area that won't lose air pressure if Loki _can_ open a shortcut to Mars from down here. Just in case they end up with near-vacuum on the other side of an oversized magic trick.

The door he's just opened is only the smaller half of a pair; the other one is big enough to roll anything smaller than a pickup truck through, to go with the hallway they're standing in. The motion-activated lights coming on can also be controlled by the good old-fashioned switches next to the door, and the wall to their right is mostly made up of whiteboard. Tony loves his holoprojections, but firmly believes every project should have a whiteboard somewhere. There's something about the scent and sound of dry-erase markers that appeals to the boy genius in him, doodling circuits on what turned out to be an antique tablecloth in what turned out to be permanent marker; Mom was _pissed_ , Mr. Jarvis was resigned, Howard never had to hear about it, okay?

The opposite wall is a mixture of shelves and drawers, lots of compartments for small pieces and ledges to leave things on, and racks standing empty and waiting. A drafting table with a dry-erase writeable surface occupies a nearby corner. A long worktable stands between the door into the hallway and what Tony designated _testing floor_ on the plans he drafted late at night when Loki wasn't answering his phone. A jumble of different kinds of chairs has been left in a corner, behind the two oversized couches at right angles to each other, backs to the rest of the room and turned towards the multipurpose screen and speakers that are mounted on the remaining wall, right over the minifridge.

"JARVIS will only listen and watch in here if he's told to," Tony says. "I mean, if what you can do is real, I hope you know I'm not going to steal your secrets and run off with them. I couldn't do that, okay? I wouldn't. I don't think I was that much of an asshole before, and now it wouldn't be worth it, not with all I'd lose. That is. Um. You. And if the teleport boxes don't scale, then it's no big deal. I'm not going to blame you or call you a fraud or anything. You're really quiet today."

Loki's hands are clenched tightly behind his back in almost military at-ease, but there's nothing easy about the tension in his shoulders and the sharp line of his jaw. "I've been thinking," he says. The calm in his voice is just a tiny bit false, a crack in the façade. "I'm trying to figure out how to explain what I understand in words that you'll understand too, and that you'll accept. The way I think about things is…different."

He closes his eyes, and laughs, a very short, mocking sound. "But never mind that. I will try, and we will see, and…Tony, understand that I am pawing over my words because this –" Loki releases his wrists from the chains of his own hands, and opens them before him in a way that encompasses the entire lab. "This is beautiful, and do not think I overlook the…welcome in it."

Before Tony can react, Loki turns to him in that sharp snap of movement Tony's seen in him before, as if he has to surprise himself into any display of affection that doesn't involve teasing laughter or outright desire. Which Tony understands – he's not good at this either.

"There are things I can't say," Loki says past him, as Tony steps into his embrace like he belongs there. "But consider them said." He pauses, and Tony genuinely can't interpret the sigh he can feel in his lover's chest. It almost sounds like regret, but why…?

What he can understand is the resolve in Loki's voice as he says, "To work, then."

* * *

"Oh," says Tony, "you're talking about a tesseract."

The string snaps between Loki's hands. "What did you say?" he asks, as if startled.

Tony catches one end of half the string – dark, rich green, as so many of Loki's things are; he must know what it does to his eyes – and tugs it away from him. They're sitting on opposite sides of the drafting table, each having chosen their own chair. A rainbow of dry-erase markers lies ready and waiting. "Travels in the fifth dimension, and all that. The math…broadly works, I think."

"…yes," Loki says eventually. He shakes himself free from whatever dimension he's been distracted into, and draws the remaining half of string taut again. "I think about things differently, but as you'd understand it, the first level is length. Second, width. Third, depth. Fourth, duration. Fifth –"

He folds the string in two, bringing his hands together. The ant-on-a-string demonstration, classic; Tony recognizes it even if he hasn't read that book since childhood. Who'd given him that one? He can't remember.

"– manipulation."

Tony tugs at his own half of string in idle thought, and then harder, trying to get it to break. Dammit, Loki had managed this just in a moment of surprise, why… "Folding space to bring places together, not traveling through everything in between. Okay, I get the concept, but you're saying that's possible? Down here on Earth, and not just in the event horizons of black holes where everything breaks down anyway?"

After a moment of hesitation, Loki shrugs, one-handed, and says, "It's possible. As you said, the maths allow it." He reaches across the table and lays his fingers against the arc reactor beneath Tony's shirt, and the momentary tightness in Tony's chest eases. He's not ashamed. It's a really gnarly scar that happens to glow blue and power the world's coolest armor, nothing more. "But not even this, I fear, could produce enough power to be effective."

Back when he'd first been building the suit, Tony had said that arc reactor technology – miniaturized and effective – would be safe because he'd be the only one with access to it. Well, if he's going to be powering spaceships with arc reactors, that resolution has gone out the airlock, so he can certainly let one of his closest friends play with one.

He's caught Rhodey looking covetously at the repaired Mark II, silvery and sleek again, but that's a little further than he wants to go just yet. Rhodey's still a soldier first, dedicated and honorable, and Tony can't be sure that Rhodey wouldn't say "Yes, sir," if someone told him to paint it red-white-and-blue and go plant a flag somewhere.

But building an arc-reactor-powered teleporter in his own basement, mostly under his supervision, is something Tony's willing to try.

Still, he has to ask.

"Out of curiosity, indulge me a second – what would we need?"

Loki's lips part as if he's about to speak, his eyes very far away, but all he says is, "We don't have it."

"So that's one sci-fi possibility off the table." Tony suits actions to words, kicking his spinny chair back and forth and writing _tesseract_ on the table in red marker just so he can cross it out. Mmmmm. Dry erase markers. He doodles a hypercube next to the word, even though that's a fourth-dimensional figure rather than fifth, its lines seemingly going everywhere but the angles precise. "What else have you got?"

"I don't know your word for this," Loki warns him. "But I know that objects that were once the same thing, still _are_ the same thing, on some level. The…identity lingers, and so some objects…remember, I suppose I mean to say."

Tony's aware of bright eyes watching him carefully, perhaps looking for disbelief. He doesn't offer it, because he doesn't understand what Loki just said, and he says as much.

"You've played with the smaller teleport boxes, I believe?"

"I wasn't playing – okay, okay, don't give me that look. Fine, I was playing. Why?"

"Did you notice that the objects you put in them always went to the same place?"

Tony thinks back, remembering dropping his sunglasses into one of the boxes, no bigger than a box of tissues, held in the resigned street magician's hands. "Actually, yeah. Took it all around the plaza, didn't make any difference."

"A piece of this table _remains_ part of the table, even if broken away, and if the broken piece is treated correctly, then the small piece here and the rest of it there remember each other."

Loki's fumbling with his words, and Tony would almost think he was making this up on the spot except one, the teleport boxes do work, and two, there is a word for that. "Hang on, are you talking about an ansible? About quantum entanglement? But that's a subatomic phenomenon, and no one's ever gotten it to work with more than a hundred atoms or so. There's an atomic physics lab at MIT working on it, I read their papers sometimes. But that's not teleportation, that's resonance. Separated atoms echoing each other. The labs are considering rare-earth crystals as quantum memory devices, I think."

"To conduct and store power and information, of course."

" _Of course,_ " Tony mimics back at him. "Seriously though, if you can prove that, why aren't you in some lab somewhere?"

Loki draws away – no, that doesn't come close; Loki _recoils_ , like the thread he's coiling idly around his fingers has turned into a snake and risen to strike at him. He very nearly leaps off the stool he's chosen in his haste to get away. " _No,_ " he says adamantly.

"Or at a university, teaching higher math or something," Tony is already saying, before the alarm in Loki's voice sinks in. "What the…oh, right. Look, I get that you're fine with living off the grid, and that it's keeping you safe. I remember the mob coming after you, about which I never got a real explanation. But this is a waste, Loki."

He regrets his words almost immediately, as Loki bares his teeth in a genuinely irritated snarl and levels a marker at him. Green. Shocker. "Firstly, Tony, _watch it_. I'm right where I need to be, even if I'd often rather be elsewhere, and I've had enough people close to me address me with that tone in their voices over what I'm _good at_."

Oops. "I didn't mean –"

"Secondly, you know nothing about what happened that night, and you wouldn't believe me if I did explain, and you're safer for it. They'll never touch you, you have my word on that – and, Tony, I may not answer questions, but when I make a promise, I mean it."

Tony doesn't have time to deal with that before Loki goes on, waving his own words aside and moving their conversation back onto safer ground for them both. "And that wasn't what I meant."

"Oh?" It seems the safest comment.

"I know how to do what I do, but even putting it into your words is…very difficult, for me. And I've never thought of it in maths. I wouldn't even know where to start." This last is with a wry, disarming smirk, inviting Tony to tease him about it, showing just a bit of harmless ignorance from a man who hoards his knowledge and his secrets.

"But it's doable? And that's what you're talking about doing, right? Scaling up the teleportation boxes?"

Loki accepts the hasty change of subject, away from whatever minefield Tony's stumbled into, without argument. "Not unless you can get me a newly broken stone from Mars as a focus. The connection fades, over time."

Aha. "Is that why the boxes keep breaking?"

His lover looks up at the ceiling as if praying for answers, or patience. "No, they continue to break because people continue to break them."

Grimacing, Tony admits, "Even if I believed what you're saying, and I said I'd at least try, I don't think Mars meteors would help you any. We've got some here on Earth, but they've been floating around in space for a long, long time, and we don't exactly have a Fast Return Switch on our rovers to bring back new ones." He adds _ansible_ to the table, and as immediately crosses it out. "But you said you had three ways of thinking about this project. What's the third?"

Loki taps his fingers next to the word, probably thinking about how to phrase the next near-impossibility, although hell, Tony has _no_ idea what's going on in his head most of the time.

"There are gaps in the world," he says finally. "Most of the time they're small, too small even to think about, like – not string, to show this on, but fabric, yes? They're part of the fabric of the world, just the spaces between the strings. It's chaos, and it's _what_ everything is, and on that level, everywhere is everywhere. I don't know your words."

Tony shuts his eyes, trying to translate from Loki into science. It's a leap. A leap of faith, but he'll make it. "Keep going and I'll stop you when I understand."

He's left his hands on the table between them, and he smiles into the darkness behind his eyelids when Loki's fingers brush against his. "Not flaws, at that scale. Just the weave. But I could put a needle through fabric, between the threads, and push them aside to make the gap bigger. Pour enough power into the very smallest spaces, in the chaos, and it's almost the same. It's like sewing through a bolt of fabric, to go anywhere, but the gaps…connect, as long as you hold them open."

Tony gets a glimpse of it, and to distract himself while he digs up the words he's looking for, as a scientist and an engineer, that Loki can't get to, he opens his eyes and asks, "Why that image?"

He doesn't expect an answer, but he can see instantly that Loki's really struggling, looking away and chewing on his lower lip, free hand moving aimlessly and the one over Tony's tightened almost to the point of pain.

Loki's not hurting him – Tony has felt the strength in those elegant hands, wondered with great interest about how much control Loki keeps it under and what it would take to break that, and how goddamn _sexy_ it would be to finally see him cut loose – so he doesn't mind at all.

And maybe the distraction's welcome. "My mother sews, and works her own craft thus," Loki says, quite casually.

Tony feels the smile spread across his face. That's new. That's one more tiny piece of Loki's past, and for all his lover warns him away from it every time he comes close, Tony still desperately wants to figure that out.

"You don't talk about her." They don't talk about their families, in general. It's the present and the future – or so Tony hopes – that they're together in, not the pasts they're both running from. Loki's spoken of his father with resentment bordering on hatred in his voice; he's mentioned that he has a brother somewhere, as heavy-handed and blond as an overenthusiastic golden retriever; his mother is a mystery. "But you smiled."

He had. It had been faint and absent-minded, but there. _Oh,_ _good_ , Tony thinks but does not say. _You had someone who cared for you, once, and still might. You used the present tense. She's still alive, or you believe so._

"You don't talk about yours."

"That's a cheap shot, Loki. And I think you're talking about quantum foam, although how… That's the cheating way around wormholes, making them subatomic and too small to do anything with, which gets rid of the power requirements to hold them open –" which are astronomical, appropriately enough. "– because they don't stay open, just opening and closing all the time. The metaphor I remember is of bubbles bursting in the foam."

Loki visibly brightens. "Yes, that will work, to think about."

"And this is seriously something you can do?"

"With enough power, yes."

Nearly _three years_ , and Tony's still not sure what the hell Loki is, charlatan or savant. It's not impossible that he's the latter. Everyone said it was impossible to miniaturize the arc reactor, and Tony pulled off that feat in a cave and in fear for his life. Not everyone with a gift understands what they have, or immediately resolves to dedicate it to science, not when it's such a pretty toy or handy tool to keep for their own use.

He still can't break the habit of asking, "And how – no, wait, you're not going to answer that. Better question. Say I believe you. Is it stable?"

"Not always." Loki gestures with his free hand, uncertainly. "The smaller ones break down almost instantly. The bubbles burst."

"Because there's not enough energy to counteract the forces trying to close them. The wormhole mouth problem. Oh, I see where the arc reactor and I come in."

"If you say so. I would say that the world heals itself, but sometimes, fractured sharply enough, it scars."

Tony imagines lightning tracing a path through the sky, an electric charge burning its way through wood, making a path for the energy and blazing a trail for more to follow. "But that's what machines are for, right? Teach a machine to do something once, it'll do it the same way every time." He can almost see it.

Not how to get there, but he's heard some of these concepts before. He'd just never met anyone who thought they could put any of them into practice. Until Loki, to whom none of the usual rules seem to apply.

Not the one about _you have to have an identity somewhere._ Not the one about _everyone loves a classic hero._ Not the one about _I don't do relationships._ Not the one about _there's nothing you can invent that I can't understand_. Not the one about _when people leave me they don't come back._

Loki laughs, softly. "I'm not convincing you, am I, pet? But if you'll trust me, if you'll build me a framework that will contain and channel the power I'm asking you to bring to bear, I'll show you something amazing."

He could make _so many_ jokes out of that, but for once, Tony keeps to the high ground rather than the gutter – although he does bookmark several intriguingly filthy gutter locations for later.

"Seems to me I did once promise you anything you wanted, if only you'd come work for me. Was not envisioning a stargate, at the time."

 _God,_ he likes that smile, one part affection and one part mockery. "So you did."

And Tony does trust him, for all that Loki's occasionally warned him not to. "Something amazing, huh? Do you promise?"

Loki catches up his hand, and kisses his fingers. "I promise."

That's that, then: Tony writes _stargate_ on the drafting table in Loki's green marker and circles it twice.

* * *

In fact, there are things more annoying than going to New York to sign off on a lease, being cornered into a surprise late-evening meeting with Justin Hammer, and being told off for "disrupting things" and accused of "showing off" and addressed as "Anthony" _all the time_.

Unfortunately, the more annoying things include being cornered into a surprise late-evening meeting with a whole _room_ full of CEOs and company founders and other high-profile people from a weird mix of tech and aerospace and military-industrial companies, and having them _all_ sandbag him for reinventing Stark Industries without warning any of them.

Tony doesn't see why he needed to give them a heads-up, or why it's any of their damn business, but not even Elon is on his side this time. He'll make it up to the guy somehow. So Tony settles for being as nonchalantly rude as possible without actually punching anyone.

In practice that means putting his feet up on the table and texting Loki, _not listening_ as loudly as possible while Hammer whines at him.

Loki's not answering, so there's no help there, but tapping out _i haaaaaaaaate this guy_ helps slightly.

"Basically, you're all just jealous," Tony says finally, cutting Hammer off in the middle of his patronizing. "And you want me to let you in on _my_ game, before Stark Industries gets everything figured out without you and we leave you all down here in the dust."

Everyone objects to this interpretation.

"So what's this, a surprise party? An intervention? It's sure as hell not a conference."

"I would go to a conference," the woman from Lockheed Martin speaks up. "Like one of those Expos Howard used to put on. I think we'd have a lot to offer."

Smelling sales, the Acid Green Tie Guy from Rolls-Royce says, "So would we."

Rolling his eyes, Tony swings his sneakers off the table again and prepares to make a run for it. "Hey, if you wanted me to throw a party, you should have led with that. You guys know how much I love a party."

He's sure Pepper will be _so_ happy to have something else to plan.

But he finally escapes, and by the time he's in the air again he's warmed up to the concept of a twenty-first century Stark Expo, and to the idea of making the suit more self-assembling. He'd love to be able to fly away from one of those meetings without the stop at the airport in between.

Planning that out entertains him all the way home.

Everything's dark when he gets in, and the house feels oddly empty, which is weird, because it's a big house for not many people most of the time anyway.

"JARVIS, where is everyone?" he asks as he pours himself a drink.

" _Ms. Potts and Mr. Hogan are currently in Houston,"_ JARVIS reports. _"Would you like me to call either of them?"_

"Right, right," Tony remembers. "Trying to recruit that flight control team away from JSC. How's the humidity down there?"

" _Average, for Houston."_

"Aw, poor Pep. Rhodey's still in Israel, right?"

" _At last contact, yes, sir."_

Tony knocks back the finger's worth of whiskey and blows into an imaginary Breathalyzer. "And Loki's hell knows where."

" _I have no information on Loki's current location."_

"Of course you don't."

That about runs through everyone he wants to be around right now, and so instead Tony refills his glass and heads downstairs. It's just too damn quiet, and not even turning on his very dumbest music helps, even up as loud as the speakers will go.

An hour's worth of preliminary sketches in the CAD program about a suit that doesn't require a manufacturing facility to put on – superhero, like hell, where's his convenient phone booth? – doesn't make things any better. Neither does throwing pens at the bots, or threatening them with donation to a recycling sorting plant (DUM-E), reassignment as a coat rack (U), or installation in a car wash (Butterfingers).

Almost inevitably, he ends up down the hall, keycoding his way into Loki's workroom and staring at the welded-together framework. There's not much else to it, yet, and Tony's main contributions so far have been the setting for the arc reactor, and the fact that it's round.

He'd insisted that if they were going to build a stargate, it was going to be a circle.

"You keep using that word," Loki had said in a tone of mild bafflement.

Smirking, Tony had tossed back automatically, "And you do not think it means what I think it means?"

To his horror, Loki had looked at him blankly and said, "What?"

All plans for a background-noise _Stargate_ marathon had been instantly abandoned. "Oh _my god,_ " Tony had said, pressing a hand over his heart – it ended up over the arc reactor – and staggering like a background minion in a bad Western being shot off a roof. "You haven't seen _Princess Bride._ Inconceivable! Seriously, man, did you figure out practical quantum physics for fun and profit just to keep yourself entertained until you could get out from beneath that rock you were living under?"

"No," Loki had replied, voice dripping so thickly with sarcasm that Tony had darted a glance at the floor, almost expecting to see a puddle, "I fell out of the sky seven years ago and haven't had the chance to absorb everything you people have ever written."

"Right, welding class has just been canceled. You stay right here, I'm gonna go make some popcorn. JARVIS, find _Princess Bride_ and pipe it to this screen right now, that's what it's here for."

That had been a great afternoon, but the memory just brings into focus how _goddamn quiet_ Tony's empty house is.

He has options.

He goes flying.

Tony's never, ever getting over how much of a _rush_ the suit is. Forget that it's armor. Forget that he can open one hand at a car and knock it grill over tailpipe and twice its length backwards. Forget that the hydraulics can lift that same car over his head without even the slightest ache in Tony's own muscles. Forget that the heads-up display reacts so quickly to his line of sight and blinked commands that it's like JARVIS is reading his mind. Forget that he's going to be able to take it underwater at some point, like his very own submarine.

Forget all of that.

Toss out all of that, and the suit would still be the most incredible thing Tony's ever built, because of the _flying_.

This is how he was meant to live. Just him and the night and the technology, repulsors warm like a winter fireplace against the palms of his hands and fainter through the soles of his feet, the exhilaration of speed and the freedom of the open sky. Feeling gravity lose its hold on him, Earth's mass scrabbling at his heels, unable to hold him back or hold him down. The bubble of absolute joy that wells up within his chest, displacing everything else.

With the armor locked into place around him, Tony angles his flight stabilizers and blinks at the command to deploy the miniscule flaps that steady him even further, and a millisecond later he feels them _snick_ out along his calves and his shoulders. All the lights of Malibu shine below him, that Ferris wheel flashing on the horizon and the streams of car headlights tracing out rivers of people and movement, and at his back, the last few lights of tugboats and tankers blink before dying out into the seemingly endless expanse of the dark Pacific.

" _What is our flight plan, sir?"_ JARVIS asks.

Tony only has to think _punch it_ and the suit responds, blazing like a rocket – _yes!_ – soaring inland. "No clue. Just issue a general alert to any airfields between here and the Rockies."

JARVIS doesn't quite sigh – damn, Tony should give him that ability, he'd get so much use out of it – but he does manage to imply a very tolerant one. _"Uploading available flight tracking data now._ " Various icons indicating planes fade into the heads-up display: a jetliner far above and heading out to sea, probably an international flight; a smaller two-person craft, someone out for a joyride; the chaos of conflicting, jockeying icons that represents LAX, the giant airport over the horizon.

"Yeah, yeah, why not warn me against bird strikes while you're at it?"

" _If I believed it would help."_

"Shut up, JARVIS, if I hit an owl I won't even notice, and any owl up this high is asking for it."

Flying has already become so instinctive that it frees the rest of him up to think, just like driving. Tony must have clocked up hundreds of thousands of kilometers in his life, driving aimlessly to give his hands and eyes something to do while the Incredible Brain chews over a problem. Motion does good things for him, when working on something else fails.

It's even lonelier up here in the sky, but surrounded by his armor, Tony is too happy to care. The quiet must have been within him, shielded from loud music by his flesh, because the endless _wheeeeeeee!_ inside finally puts paid to it.

He hadn't had a destination when he set out, but it doesn't take long before he realizes where he's going, and he's not all that surprised when he figures it out.

 _I'm bored, I'm restless, I'm looking for something but I don't know what, I'm lonely, I'm hoping, I'm hopeful._

 _Loki, impress me._

Las Vegas from above is a sight and a half, enfolding as it does so many weird and out-of-place features that aren't architecture so much as oversized toys. It's no wonder so many movies use this skyline. It's totally bizarre, and it's a beacon, drawing in everyone and everything that comes within view. It's a bright island in the darkened desert, washing out the night sky to a glazed grey.

Also, slaloming up and down the Strip is _just too much fun._

Zoomed-in images flicker across the HUD, upturned faces and dropped jaws, wide eyes and camera lenses, pointing fingers and waving hands as the Las Vegas hordes catch sight of the man-made meteor streaking through their sky. Iron Man loops rings around the Treasure Island ship, silhouettes himself in the Luxor spotlight for a single blinding moment, taps an armored finger in passing against the upraised wand of the Merlin statue on the battlements of Excalibur, waves back to the people waving to him.

It's like the best waterslide or ski run ever invented, like being a kid taking a deep breath at one end of the pool and diving in, trying to swim all the way to the other end without having to come up for air. He starts at the south extent of the Strip proper, taking Mandalay Bay as his starting line and kicking in – hah – the foot repulsors, propelling him over the traffic and the tourists at just below the speed of sound.

Casinos flick-flick-flick by on both sides, like he's traveling through one of Loki's quantum wormholes between different regions of the world. Egypt to New York to Paris to Venice in the blink of an eye, no wonder Loki thinks about distance _differently_. Iron Man banks a hard right between the Bellagio and the Venetian, where the Strip goes off at an angle, doing a quintuple barrel roll just for the hell of it, and comes out of the spin actually cackling with delight.

Yelling and laughing, whooping with the joy of acceleration, Iron Man soars among the lights of the Vegas skyline and the cheering audience below, totally stealing everyone else's show and not remotely sorry, because if there's anywhere, in all the world, to put on a show –

– it's here.

Adrenaline spurts through his veins, churning through his beating, beating, beating heart; endorphins turn everything around him into a bright and welcoming haze, a natural and perfect high.

Tony couldn't be happier.

Finally, after several laps, a fist-pumping stop on the peak of the Hard Rock Café guitar, and a whirlwind tour of the famous landmarks – hi, big ol' ever-waving Vegas Vic! – he tags the side of the Stratosphere like the touch plate at the end of a swim lane, and launches himself straight up.

Windows streak by, and he skirts the bulging-out flying saucer of the top, dodging the roller coaster tracks. The launch becomes a dive for a split second, and Iron Man touches down in a perfect three-point landing on the roof of the tallest building in the western United States.

Laughing uncontrollably, he rises to his feet and raises his hands to his head, triggering the helmet release with a glance at the HUD and pulling it off so he can admire the unmatched view through his own eyes.

What a town. Viva Las Vegas, hell yeah!

"Showoff," says an accented voice from the shadows.

Tony very nearly drops the helmet, and he stumbles forwards as he startles, barely getting the suit back under control before he does a very heavy faceplant.

"Loki," he yelps, looking around, " _what the fuck!_ "

It takes him a second to find the magician, without the helmet's night-vision goggles and proximity detectors – and why the hell hadn't those detectors registered him? Sure, Loki is in the suit's facial recognition/targeting scanner software as _not a threat_ , but it should have at least noticed that Tony wasn't the only person on this _stupid-high_ and supposedly inaccessible roof.

But no, there's Loki, sitting with his back against the spire, one leg drawn up to his chest, the other foot twitching idly almost on a level with Tony's eyes. Given the scrambled mixture of light and shadows all the way up here, almost the only thing Tony can see of him is his grin.

The words _I knew you were the Cheshire Cat_ are on the very tip of Tony's tongue; somehow, he doesn't say them.

"I told you I liked it up here," Loki says; he sounds exactly as amused as that grin looks, which is to say, insufferably.

Tony has a hand over his heart even through the armor, breathing deeply. Or trying to. It feels difficult to get a full breath, sometimes, and the occasional chest pains from the reactor casing aren't getting any less painful.

"Do you just hang out up here?" he demands once he's got enough air to speak.

"Sometimes." Loki leaps down from his perch, fearlessly, winding through the crowded, narrow space without missing a step or hesitating.

Tony watches him do so with a mixture of awe and doubt. He really, really likes watching Loki move – that's beautiful in the way a perfect parabola is beautiful, because _that's just what it does_ and there's nothing anyone can do to improve what it does naturally.

But on the other hand, Loki has been…weird, lately. That is, Loki's _always_ weird, but weirder than usual.

He probably thinks he's hiding it, but he's not. Three years ago, Tony would have seen nothing, but Tony knows this man better by now. He's seen Loki let his guard down. He's seen fear in Loki's eyes, and naked, shameless lust, and he's seen a wild eagerness for battle that, when that he thinks about it – not that he thinks about that on long and lonely nights, who does _that?_ – couldn't have been entirely faked, however much he'd wanted to believe so at the time.

Since then he's seen Loki go from rapt and desperate concern for him to ready to kill in a blink, and he's realized that violence is closer to the surface of him than Loki wants people to see.

And Tony knows when something's bothering his lover, his friend. Even if he has no idea what. Even if he has no idea how to ask, or how to fix it. Because firstly, he's still not good at things like that, and secondly, he suspects that he might not be able to fix it.

Ignorance _is_ bliss, actually. Tony had been so happy when he didn't know he was being screwed over by someone he trusted, or that making things that blew up did have consequences, or that making things that killed people meant their deaths were _his fault_ and their blood on his hands. It's just that realization is a stone-cold bitch that charges a steep, steep interest rate.

Oh, for the days when they had nothing more complicated to do than flirt and roam through casinos together. When everything was simpler, and Tony didn't understand how dark the world really was.

Also, he can't help but notice that Loki's completely unafraid of heights. He doesn't hesitate no matter how close to the edge and the _very_ long way down he gets.

"You're making me really nervous there," Tony comments, because that's easier than asking _what's wrong, Loki? Tell me, I can't fix it if I don't know_. "You fall off and I have to do the comic book thing and catch you, I'm calling you Loki Lane for the rest of forever. You will never hear the last of it."

Loki snorts like he's never heard anything so ridiculous. "Why would I do that?" Like it's a choice.

"I dunno." It's hard to shrug in the suit, but Tony tries, gives up, and resorts to Loki's own outspread-hand gesture instead. The repulsor nestled in his palm glows. "Sudden gust of wind? The wind shear up here has got to be ridiculous given the temperature differential between desert ground and this high up in the air…"

His brain and his senses catch up with his mouth; it's a bit of a relay race around here to determine which of them is in the lead. "…although it's not." There's barely any wind at all, in fact. That can't be right. "Why not?"

"Magic."

Well, why the hell did he ask Loki in the first place? "One day, Loki, you're going to give me a real answer."

What wind there is stirs long night-black hair, strands tumbling around Loki's face as he answers, "Or one day, you'll believe me."

"I don't believe in magic," Tony says, not for the first time.

Loki looks him straight in the eye.

"I know."

* * *

 _To be continued._


	10. Wild Card

ON WITH THE SHOW!

 **Chapter Ten: Wild Card**

There's a morning where Tony actually can't get out of bed. He knows he should, he knows he has things to do, but there's a greasy uneasiness in his stomach like the residue of cold and stale coffee, and all the strength has drained from his limbs like they've been converted to hydraulics and someone left the valves open overnight.

He just can't get up.

Instead, he accepts that he's going to lie very still and be aware of his surroundings for a while. This isn't a problem. It's to be expected, really, that he'd wake up tired. Just tired. That's all it is. He's been working flat-out, with only stolen moments here and there for himself outside the heady chaos of an active, all-consuming project like steering one of the biggest companies in the world away from a war footing and instead off to another planet. He's been caught up in his own whirlwind, nearly nonstop.

It's an opportunity to wake up slowly and leisurely, to not be in a rush despite the long, long string of tasks awaiting him today and every day. A chance to savor the smooth white sheets, rumpled and tangled around him, warm and smelling of his body and his lover's, never mind that Tony's woken up alone this morning. Above, washed clean in the early-morning winter light struggling through the fog at a low angle, is the unbroken expanse of the equally white ceiling overhead. Mirrors on the ceiling are for _ridiculously_ sleazy no-tell motels. Tony's not that tasteless, especially when he can have a blank slate at the ready for when he wakes up with ideas solidifying out of dreams.

It's a chance to sink into the plush mattress and appreciate things like gravity, and how wonderful gravity is no matter how much he bad-mouths it for making getting to space so inconvenient. Gravity is why everything exists. Good morning, gravity.

This is a morning not to rush, then, but to feel himself breathe, and take comfort in how steady his breaths are this morning, no cough tickling deep in his chest just waiting to tear its way out.

That's all it is, because he can't be sick. He doesn't have time.

He can't afford to think about the damage still eating its way through his body, or that even the awesome power of the arc reactor can't solve the problem that _is_ the arc reactor. He doesn't need to lie here and calculate exactly how much of his life was shaved off by that shrapnel bomb and the rough-handed slap-shod surgery in its wake.

Every second spent thinking about that is another second wasted, and _Tony doesn't have time._ He has too much to do. The Mars shot is a decade's commitment, at least, until they have anything like a working prototype, and that's only to get there. _Being_ there is a whole new world – hah – of problems. And it's probably going to go wrong a few times. Anything this big always does. Look at the Apollo program. Look at Apollo 1, poor bastards. Hell, look at Apollo _13_ , and that was _after_ things started working.

Sure, the tech's better now – working on that is just another thing Tony should be doing, rather than lying here imagining his own bed swallowing him like quicksand, ready to pour into his tattered lungs and drown him – but that just means it has more ways to go wrong.

He can't be sick. Tony needs long enough to see a starship launch and human footprints pressed into the sands of Mars. Long enough to crack open the clean energy market. Long enough to ensure that every last wayward weapon with his name on the hull has been tracked down and destroyed without anyone else getting hurt.

Long enough, at that, to find those fuckers who keep Loki looking over his shoulder, and to kick their asses until they leave his magician the hell alone.

Long enough to know he's made things right, and that he's made a mark on the world that isn't a goddamn bomb crater, that's more than ashes and shrapnel and blood.

So he has to get out of this bed; has to beat the sunlight to breakfast and face the faint chill in the air and the feeling of tiles beneath his bare feet.

God, he's thinking about slippers. He's getting old.

Running out of _time…_

"All right," Tony mutters to himself, "here goes."

He has to talk himself out of bed one movement at a time, feeling like he's dragging the Mark I suit behind him. At least only JARVIS sees him struggle.

Tony's a breath away from asking, "JARVIS, where's Loki?" before he decides against it. It's okay. Loki isn't going anywhere. And his magician can't have been gone long; the sheets on the other side of the bed are still tossed carelessly askew, and Tony's own restless sleep hasn't yet pulled them flat again. He does tend to hog the bedsheets – because they're his sheets in the first place – but that was easily solved by just getting _bigger sheets_.

Logic.

It's fine, Tony reassures himself, rubbing his hands over his face as he sits on the edge of the bed. Loki's picked up some of Tony's own bad habits, much to the engineer's amusement, so he's probably downstairs in his own lab, doing…

Tony _really doesn't know what,_ actually.

But any moment now maybe he'll come upstairs, or back inside from watching the ocean, or JARVIS will quietly let him know that Tony's awake and moving.

So Tony should probably be goddamn awake and moving, then.

Every movement seems to require an inordinate amount of work, as he stumbles towards the bathroom. It's not fair. Loki wakes up absurdly fast, Tony can now say from observation and experience. The magician is happy to loll around and doze and be cajoled from bed – Tony often doesn't bother, happy just to see him comfortable and content, or to join him in the many forms of languid, shameless pleasure to be found there – but he can also be up and gone in no time flat, eyes alert and not a hair of that long mane out of place.

"I don't know how you do that," Tony had complained, watching Loki's shoulders move as he shrugged on a loose black shirt one morning. "And if you tell me _magic…_ "

Loki had laughed at him, fingers moving so quickly and smoothly Tony almost thought the buttons were buttoning themselves. "That's because you've never been on a long trip with my brother demanding we move out at first light."

"Oh, hell," Tony had said, after a few seconds of contemplating this still-mysterious brother, who casts a very long shadow, but who Loki is rarely slow to throw shade at. "He's a camping sort of person, isn't he?" He'd sprawled back onto the bed and hidden his face beneath a pillow, emerging only to elaborate, "Campfires? Food on sticks? Mosquitoes? Reveille at dawn to scare off the birds? Pissing in the bushes? Go catch and clean your own fish, it's good for you?"

He'd done camping – tents and hiking and poison ivy and the forced camaraderie of misery – exactly once, that summer Howard read something about Boy Scouts in a newspaper and decided that "American patriot industrialist sends son on everyman childhood experience!" was exactly the sort of publicity he needed. Tony had not been consulted, or happy to be taken away from his homemade robotics lab.

"I don't want to talk about it," Loki had answered, grimacing as he tugged at his shirt cuffs, which Tony interpreted as "Yes, something like that."

Since Loki's brother isn't around to drag Tony around by his heels – and a good thing too, since Tony kind of wants to punch the guy – Tony is forced to stumble into the bathroom under his own power. There, he looks at his reflection in the softly-lit mirror and then has to look away, flinching. There are bags under his eyes like he's been up and working for four days straight, sustained only by coffee and momentum, and his skin is a sickly shade of wet ash, bleaching the color from his face all the way down to the livid scars still knotting their way around the arc reactor.

The ghosts of bruises linger beneath the skin of his chest, highlighting weakened, threatened veins in dark purple and sickly yellow-green. Shadows bloom within him, a darkness the reactor can't keep at bay.

Ignoring JARVIS' polite, _"Sir, do you require assistance?"_ Tony braces his forearms on the bathroom countertop and closes his eyes, bowing his head against the backs of his hands and arms. He takes a deep breath, just to prove he still can. And another.

Okay. Keep doing that, and it'll be fine.

He's not ashamed of the reactor implanted in his body. He can even sleep without a shirt on now, blankets wrapped just a little tighter across his front and his lover asleep against his back, often with one arm thrown across him possessively, and never flinching away from the edges of metal Loki's touch happens to encounter.

Tony just wishes it wasn't there. Sure, he's running the Iron Man suit on it, and Iron Man feels like what he was _meant_ for, something new and wonderful all his own.

But why, but _why_ , does he have to run on it too?

"Shut the hell up, Stark," he mutters to himself. "Hundreds of thousands of people with artificial heart valves. Prosthetics, prosthetic limbs are awesome. Pacemakers. Totally save lives every day. Nobody's any less for it. Nobody's wrong because of 'em. This one just glows a little brighter."

Yeah. So does radium, and look how well that turned out for the Radium Girls.

When he meets his own eyes in the mirror, he can see the doubt there, and the fear. The arc reactor is keeping him alive…but what if it's also killing him?

What is he going to do?

Instead, he makes a list of what he's not going to do. He's not going to lie in bed and surrender. He's not going to accept it. He's not going to give up.

He's going to put some clothes on, and get the hell to work on what is not – _is not_ – a bucket list.

He's going to put his boot up as many asses as it takes to get that starship off the ground and on its way, as quickly as safely possible. He's going to keep being Iron Man, bright and colorful and brilliant and unstoppable. And until that ship flies, he's going to hope that his trust in a twisted, sarcastic smile isn't misplaced, as mad as the whole scheme sounds.

 _Please, Loki, promise me the stargate is going to work before…_

"Making Pascal's wager," he says to the mirror, which fails to answer. "You goddamn hypocrite."

The last gamble of a dying man, who believes, at the end, because now he has nothing to lose.

Tony doesn't believe in any sort of gods, but maybe he can believe in the man using the name of one. A capricious, whimsical, more than a little malicious one, certainly, but Tony was never one for shining saints in the first place.

Instead, he splashes warm water across his face, and brushes his teeth until he feels less like a corpse, and turns his back on the mirror.

He's looked into the eyes of death already and found that he doesn't want to die, and he still doesn't. He's got things to do before he goes down.

* * *

Bad weather keeps him from actually getting to visit Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, but everything he reads about the place is perfect. He wants to pick the entire base up and transplant it to Mars. It's got hydroponic greenhouses for fresh food. It deals with airlocks fronting out onto the most hostile weather conditions this side of an erupting volcano or two kilometers underwater. The researchers there have to deal with their circadian rhythms being knocked out of alignment because of the six-month days and nights, and with isolation, and with the risk of having limited resources and no outside help if something goes wrong or someone gets sick.

And the place has the decency to have actual wind shear when and where it's supposed to, although the wind shear is _horrible_. Tony's kind of impressed. It's really a toss-up whether Amundsen-Scott or Concordia or Halley is his favorite Antarctic Mars-substitute outpost at this point.

Someone must have blueprints he can borrow and repurpose into a Mars outpost proposal, but _who…?_

Tony taps through to the next page of the report, losing himself in the video tour a helpful astronomer had shot for him. She's hoping to get a job offer out of it, he suspects, and doesn't mind at all. Resignedly, he admits to himself that even if the weather down at the bottom of the world had behaved, he wouldn't have had _time_ to visit. There's just too much to do here.

The interviews Pepper keeps sending him on are repetitive but fun, although if he has to say _the Kite is not a missile_ one more time he's just going to make himself a sign he can whip out and point to every time some daytime TV host opens her mouth.

Hell, he could be out on a street corner with a sandwich board that said _the Kite is not a missile_ , as often as he's repeated himself. The _Kite_ isn't even a ship, it's just the proof of concept repulsor-powered ship stand-in with a bunch of sensors onboard and a radiation shield that they're going to test out in near-Earth orbit and, maybe, if that goes well, in cis-lunar space.

But it's going to fly very fast, and in space, and some absolute idiot, forgetting about the sensors and experiments onboard, suggested that it should self-destruct once it had proved itself, which _instantly_ led to screams of "Stark Industries launches guided missile into space!" on crackpot radio.

Tony had suggested to Pepper, before she went off to negotiate the acquisition of a small company that makes lightweight insulating fabric, that they hire some of the people on actual street corners to carry that _the Kite is not a missile_ sign. That would be philanthropic and provide jobs to underserved populations and stuff like that.

Pepper had said no. Actually, she'd said _oh god no_ , but that's a minor detail, as was her request for a sign of her own. One that just said _no, Tony_.

She'd been joking.

Probably.

There's so much going on around him, as he leans back at his desk overlooking the main factory, muttering notes about Amundsen-Scott to JARVIS via his laptop, and he doesn't even know what it all is. Tony's the big idea guy, and the hands-on detail guy, but the infrastructure in between is not his area. If anyone knows _everything_ that happens around here, it's Pepper.

But it's happening. It's really happening, and that's what matters. If there's anything better than spending two days arguing with NASA engineers and Elon's peace-offering geek squad about protecting fragile humans and computer networks from solar radiation, shoving each other's ideas in circles and having a blast, Tony just doesn't know what it is.

And there are the people who corner him as he visits SI labs and university campuses and Air Force bases and takes the stage of the theater at the Air and Space Museum, who all have the same thing to say.

 _Oh my god, this is so awesome; I can't believe this is happening and I'm really excited._

There are the people with space cartoons papering their office walls, floor to ceiling. That girl he stumbled over by accident, crying over old footage of a shuttle launch on her laptop, who looked up at him and smiled with absolute joy. The giant annotated Mars globe that university professor had in his office, that he'd refused to sell to Tony at any cost; Tony had ended up shaking his hand sincerely and telling him _almost_ all about the Mars game. The Mars Society, _god,_ Tony had wanted to move in. There are all the unsolicited ideas the company is getting through the shiny new website that's keeping the world up to date, in twenty-three languages and counting, on what they're doing and how many things they're not blowing up. Some of the ideas are actually good.

He's meeting so many people with dreams, who wanted to make rocket ships and ended up making missiles instead. He's finding people who wanted to be astronauts, but they stayed in the Air Force and flew bombers because that's what there was to fly, and they _had to fly_ …which Tony totally understands now.

He's meeting people who have _thought_ about this, and run complex experiments and simulations, and offered prizes for ideas, and who have all these concepts just waiting for a backer and, in some cases, the technology to catch up with them.

He's watching small miracles happen every day.

So how can he be asking for more?

 _It's possible,_ a light British accent, just a memory, says in reply.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Tony realizes that the video of Amundsen-Scott has gone on without him, and that he's staring off into space – hah – and scowling faintly.

"Uh oh," says Rhodey, pouring himself a drink from one of the decanters on the small table in the corner. "That's the _my boyfriend's a lunatic_ face."

Tony startles, refocusing on the actual room in front of him that his oldest friend has just appeared in as Rhodey totes the decanter over to Tony's desk with him and kicks back in a chair. "What the –" he startles, and automatically adds, "He's not my boyfriend." Not that _anyone_ believes him.

Lifting his glass in an ironic toast, Rhodey counters, "Then how did you know who I was talking about?"

"Because he _is_ a lunatic," Tony grumbles, pausing the playback and setting the tablet aside. "Never mind. You're back! How's things?"

"Refill," Rhodey demands, waggling the empty glass at him.

Tony obliges. "That bad?"

"Don't start. I've been putting out _your_ brush fires twenty-four/seven," Rhodey scolds him halfheartedly. "I'm supposed to be your handler, so ideally, I'd know what you're up to, and I don't have a clue."

"I'm going to Mars, Rhodey, I said –"

Rhodey glares at his drink, and sets it aside. "Yeah, well, it's not that simple, Tony. People are looking for the agenda. Important people, in important-looking suits, with important-sounding titles."

"Blowhards all," Tony dismisses them. "There isn't an agenda. There's just me trying to do something a little better for the world than blow it up."

"Tony…" Rhodey sighs, giving up. "Oh, who am I kidding? I've never been able to tell you anything. Forget it. You're living your dream, fine, so what's with the scowl?" He grins, suddenly. "No, wait. The better question is probably, what's he done now?"

Nervously, Tony glances over Rhodey's shoulder. The door to the office, _his_ office…well, more like Pepper's office, these days…is closed, and the building's security team sweeps for bugs in here every morning and evening. No one's eavesdropping, and one day Tony won't _have_ to keep Loki a secret, but until then, the one thing he's ever been discreet about has to stay just that.

Still, he pours himself a drink and rattles the ice around in it, buying himself some time while his stomach stops doing uneasy backflips.

It's one thing to hang around in the downstairs workshop late at night, just the two of them, and talk about science almost beyond the scope of human understanding, or to listen to Loki fumble his way through concepts he seems to understand without being able to verbalize, or to be caught by the absolute confidence in green eyes as he _promises_ the impossible.

There's an aura about Loki that makes Tony forget what he believes about the world he understands; it's something heady and bizarre and addictive.

Is it possible that he's so head over heels for the one person who keeps him guessing, he's lost perspective? He _wants_ to believe, but those words are the death of rational thought and an invitation to gullibility.

The man named himself after a _trickster god,_ and has never, ever given Tony a straight answer about anything. In the clear light of day, with his very real-world company around him, in this very practical and rational place full of emails and requisitions for office supplies and payroll forms…exactly why does Tony believe in anything Loki's offered him?

 _Quantum wormholes._ May as well say, _magic._

Again.

"Rhodey," he asks, "am I stupid?"

His friend snorts. "Yes. In many unique and frustrating ways. Also, no."

Tony rolls his eyes. "Ha ha. Then, without admitting anything, why am I acting so stupid whenever he's around?"

"Oh boy." Rhodey sets his glass down on the desk; it makes a nice, normal _clink_ sound. "…because you like the guy?"

"I'm going crazy," Tony declares, deliberately woebegone.

Rhodey groans and puts his head in his hands. "I'm trying to think of someone else you could talk to about this," he grumbles, "and I'm not coming up with anyone… Dammit, it's gotta be me, doesn't it? Okay. Quickest way in and out of this conversation… Here goes. Tony, I don't know what you two are up to, and I probably don't want to know. Look, he hasn't sat right with me from the beginning. There's something terribly…off-kilter about him," Rhodey shrugs. "But you're crazy about him, and that's kind of amazing all by itself. And that night you fought Stane? Did you see the look on his face when he thought I was a threat to you?"

"No…"

"Holy shit." It's a whistle, a curse, a prayer. "There's a man who can bring a knife to a gunfight, that's for sure. He was going to go straight through a bullet to protect you, and I think he would have gone for me bare-handed if he had to. Wouldn't have blinked."

Tony clamps down on his reactions before he can visibly shudder, and not out of fear. Still, he has to close his eyes for a moment, the better to imagine that.

He is _so screwed…_

When he opens them again, Rhodey has his absolute most noncommittal face on. "You're the one who knows him, Tony. You're the only one who can decide how far you trust him."

"I'm changing the subject now," Tony mutters.

"Let's do that."

* * *

 _It all goes around, it all goes around…_ Tony can't get the silly little ditty out of his head, and it grinds away in the back of his head as he lifts the targeting scanner to eye level and squints into it, as if he could spot the minuscule flaw with eyes alone. Something in it is out of place, and it's probably in the code, not the hardware.

… _the moon goes around the Earth, the Earth goes around its core, the Earth goes around the sun, it all goes around._ Of course, the targeting scanner is working on best-guess numbers in the first place, and while they're _very_ good guesses, a decimal point out of place and their pet stargate is going to open on empty space rather than the surface of Mars, and that's if it opens at all.

Since he can't have his music on – Tony wishes he'd thought to bring a pair of headphones, but usually he's the final arbiter of when and how loud music is played, and anyone who's bothered by it can just deal – he settles for the loopy bit of doggerel in the hope of playing the earworm out to its end and killing it that way. _…the planets go around the sun, the sun goes around the core, it all goes around the core, it all goes around…_

And that's why he's got JARVIS going through astrophysics papers, because everything's moving, and there's no absolute positioning system.

Yet. The device in Tony's hand might be one, if he can get it to work. It's got to account for the movement of Earth as it rotates, and as it orbits the sun, and as Mars rotates and orbits the sun. And at the same time, the sun is orbiting the center of the Milky Way, and the galaxy itself is hurtling through space on a collision course with Andromeda, and the whole universe is still expanding, bursting out from that biggest of bangs, or the Horrendous Space Kablooie, if you're funny. It all adds up. The movement of everything affects where everything else is in relation to it, and there is no fixed point.

Tony's cadged some of the code for it from the Hubble Space Telescope, and some from the Webb, which is going to replace it in the next few years, and some from Stark Industries' own proprietary satellites and GPS software. And he's still having to invent math – thanks for that whole calculus thing, Newton; meet Tony Stark. JARVIS is mining the astrophysics papers for the best available numbers on rates of momentum for planets around stars within galaxies through the void as _it all goes around, it all goes around…_

Of course, all this assumes Tony doesn't accidentally impale the microchips with the tiny light pen he's using to probe around in its innards.

And then… Tony casts a glance over his shoulder and the back of the couch, and again the machine taking shape in the center of the room takes his breath away just a bit.

It stands on its rim and the rigid legs that brace it, tall enough to walk through. It would be perfectly circular, if not for the spiderweb-like tendrils that sprout from its surface whenever Tony's not looking, winding together in eye-watering patterns, and the power cables suckling off the arc reactor like a keystone. The frame is mostly hollow, he knows, because he'd built it, and hatches along the surface provide access, but the guts of it are still a mystery.

Loki hasn't let him near any of the vital components, only asking now and again for the absolute positioning system Tony's programming out of a new targeting scanner, and to watch over Tony's shoulder as he melted down the alloy the frame is built out of. Tony had manipulated it while Loki watched, otherwise doing nothing as Tony tipped the chamber back and forth to make it flow in circles, and ran increasing amounts of electricity through it as it solidified again, and put it through extremes of heat and cold. And Loki had offered no explanation, of course, simply watched with his hands hidden behind his back and his head on one side, eyes very distant as if taking notes inside his head, and then kissed Tony _thank you_ and never mentioned it again.

Tony is both frustrated and enchanted, half of him wanting to tackle Loki to the workshop floor and demand the man tell him everything, and the other half caught and held rapt by the sheer wrongness of the magician surrounded by so much technology, enjoying just _watching_.

Even he can notice that Loki had been more at ease on the roof of the Stratosphere, strolling along the edge, than here. Loki's so much more a creature of Las Vegas, of magic and wonder and potential, than of a laboratory where everything should be weighed and counted and measured. He looks so much more at home under shifting neon marquees than fluorescent ceiling lights. It's the magic he loves, or at least the seeming of it, and Tony wonders sometimes if he's expecting too much.

If he's drawn Loki into an environment the magician is uncomfortable with, and only staying out of affection.

…which is a _very_ strange thought, to be sure. That someone would do that, for him! It can't be possible.

Still, so many times he's caught Loki choosing his words carefully, talking around a concept until Tony comes out with the proper but still speculative term for it, and late one evening – or maybe early one morning – Tony had remembered the proper term for _that._

 _Cold reading._

Loki's cold reading him. Tossing bait out there, waiting for him to bite, and then pulling on that line so Tony forgets about the bait, all the wrong guesses, he didn't go for. Fake psychics – an oxymoron, he knows – do it all the time. _I'm seeing someone gone from your life…a man? Yes, you smiled, someone you were fond of…his name was…oh, I can't quite hear, his voice is still too faint. Think of him! Focus all your energy on his memory. Something's coming through…it began with a P? No, a B…_ and the sucker cries out, "Uncle Bill! He didn't speak very clearly after the stroke." And it's all downhill from there.

What Tony can't figure out is why. And he's…not hurt, he's just disappointed. Still, after all this time, after all the trust Tony's shown him, after all they've been through together: the man asleep beside him on the couch, curled up to keep his feet from hanging off the end and head pillowed on Tony's thigh, doesn't trust him in return.

But his body says otherwise, as Tony looks down at him. Every so often, as he works on and around the stargate taking shape in the center of the room, Loki will just collapse, exhausted for some reason, even if all he's doing is crouching by the base of the ring with his hands out of sight, presumably installing or rewiring something. Every so often there will be a flash, like a circuit has been knocked out of alignment, but never anything bigger than the spark in an ordinary outlet as Tony plugs in the portable coffee machine Loki is _always_ unplugging when he's not looking.

"I do not drink too much coffee," Tony had complained, not _nearly_ the last time he'd found it unplugged. "And if you want the room to smelllike coffee, _someone_ has to drink it, or it'll burn and go bad and smell awful."

No amount of coffee could have kept Loki awake, as he'd closed the hatch on whatever component he'd just installed. He'd staggered as he'd stepped away from the ring, and caught himself against the worktable, not far from the prototype Mars rover Tony's building.

…y'know, just in case the stargate _works._

"Hey, you okay there? Stood up too fast." Tony had nodded wisely. "Know that feeling. Come take a break – and don't you laugh at me, I may not listen to Pepper all the time, but I know she means well. So do I. C'mon."

Loki had grimaced. "I'm all right," he'd insisted. "Just…I'll be fine. Well. If you insist."

Tony had given into temptation and stuck his tongue out at the man, over his outstretched hands reaching for Loki's to pull him towards the couch. "Yeah, I insist. That'll show you. No choice now. Come here, you. Please," he'd added as Loki looked affronted.

Loki had hesitated long enough to activate the device Tony calls the Biting Box, no more than a flick of fingers against it, and a gently pulsing light had switched on. A faint haze had billowed out from its surface as its creator had stepped very carefully into Tony's hands.

"It's okay," Tony had tried to reassure him, as he'd started to doze off, eyelashes flickering convulsively in a struggle to stay awake. "I won't mess with it. See? Project of my own, right here. Targeting scanner, tablet, you, I'm set."

One encounter with the Biting Box had been enough, not to mention fuel for a bitter argument. Switched on, it sends a small electric charge through the structure of the stargate. It's not big enough to fry anything, but it was strong enough to sting Tony's fingers like a nasty static shock when he'd tried to touch one of the closed hatches, unable to resist the urge to peek.

"Don't do that," Loki had said, sounding pissed. "You promised to leave it alone. It won't make any sense to you yet, and you'll ask questions I can't answer."

Tony hadn't heard a word of that, only the irritation in Loki's voice. "Seriously?" he'd demanded, shaking out his fingers before sticking the tips of them in his mouth like a child. "That hurt! And hell, were you going to warn me before I grabbed it with my whole hand? Or both of them, closed the circuit?"

"It's not that strong. But don't," Loki had answered, perfectly petty, folding his arms across his chest and raising his chin, making himself _bigger_ like Tony was going to be intimidated by him.

" _I've got an electromagnet running my heart, Loki!_ You set up something that's going to shock me, _you tell me first!_ "

For a second, green eyes had blazed at him before Loki visibly bit back some scathing and totally unfounded comment. "You stay here," he'd commanded, and walked out the door. "And don't touch it again!"

"Where the hell do you think you're going?" Tony had shouted after him.

"Somewhere _else!_ "

It had probably been for the best, as Tony was still shaking and frightened, imagining himself as a cartoon outline, a jolt of cartoon lightning lighting up his skeleton and the chunk of metal within until the skeleton was all that remained, and he would have said something regrettable.

They'd made peace later, after Tony had blasted his eardrums out with dumb music and hit an engine block with a hammer a few hundred times, and – by JARVIS' account – Loki had gone outside and thrown rocks impressively far into the ocean.

Now the Biting Box lights up clearly when it's on, and Tony has promised anew not to peek at the present he's been promised, as long as he doesn't cheat by unwrapping it early.

He'd never been good at that, as a kid.

But since then, he's learned to wait. Learned to be more patient. He'd waited for Loki to come to him, rather than grabbing too roughly at the man and all he represents. He'd let that happen in its own time, and _damn,_ that had been worth it. He'd made a friend as well as claimed a lover.

And he'd said _come and build things for me,_ and waited, and looked away, and trusted, and in the end Loki had opened his hands and said _let me build this for you_. Not anything so crass as an exchange, but like a gift.

So Tony can keep his hands off the mystery, no matter how much he wants to _know._ Even if he can hear his heart ticking down his seconds.

Anyway, that doesn't mean he has to keep his hands off the magician, and that more than makes up for the frustration of the Biting Box. It seems perfectly natural to let his own calloused fingers brush against Loki's slimmer ones and comb through the ends of his hair as he rests, the line of his throat open and bared. Tony can keep time by the steady beat of his pulse, visible beneath his clear skin and totally, completely vulnerable.

Loki may not trust Tony with his secrets, but his body tells a different story.

"…can feel you watching me," Loki mutters, not opening his eyes.

Tony chuckles softly and traces a finger along the curve of his ear. "I am guilty of creeping on you. But to be fair, my code's compiling."

"I don't know what that means."

"That's because you're not a programmer. It's license to do whatever I want until the code is ready to talk to me again."

"Convenient," Loki accepts.

"If it's ever ready to talk to me again. It might choke on what I'm asking it to do and die."

Loki sighs as if granting him a great favor, while Tony's hand sneaks under the fabric of his shirt and lower. "In that case, you may continue to do what you are doing. And I will talk to it."

"Hang on, didn't we just agree that I'm the one who codes things around here?"

"I was going to threaten it."

"Ah. Coding 101. You pass."

"It will work, pet." Tony's skin twitches as Loki finds one of the holes in these very old jeans and tugs at it, fingers exploring idly in return and a soft, inviting noise in his throat. "I'm certain of it."

"That makes one of us. It's all so…" Tony leans back against the couch, and blows air idly at his goatee. He feels like he missed a spot this morning, although it hadn't been a _bad_ morning. "I mean, wormholes. Manipulating the quantum foam. And here we are in the basement, doing math I don't think either of us understand and building something I know I don't. Stranger things have happened, but probably not many."

Grimacing momentarily, Loki says, "It's not about the maths. It's…an art, I suppose. But knowing the direction, and how far to go, will help."

"Honestly, Loki, if this does anything, I'll be so excited it won't matter _where_ it ends up."

"I may hold you to that," Loki murmurs, but Tony isn't listening.

"Even a proof of concept, that's a breakthrough in more ways than one." Most of him, the sensible majority that knows its physics and turns a properly skeptical eye on every wild new claim that crops up in the fringier journals and at the drunker afterparties at tech conferences, is rolling its eyes and writing off this whole endeavor as a white elephant. A big, pretty project, a gift to make his lover happy. And, at the same time, a challenge. _You talk a good show, lover. Prove it._

The rest of him has dug in its heels and said, _hey, I'm apparently a superhero, so miracles_ can _happen, and what if it works?_

"You know," Tony comments wryly, "you make a pretty good mad scientist, for a magician. This is nuts."

Loki smirks at him; even upside down, it's still the most mischievous thing Tony's ever seen. "But you're listening," he says, teasing.

It's a joke, but Tony hesitates, because there's a question hidden in there.

Why _is_ he listening?

"I…" he starts. And stops. Thinks. Goes with his first impulse. "…trust you."

Long fingers twine around his, and a shadow seems to fall across Loki's eyes, and it's not because Tony has gone anywhere. "You shouldn't."

"You saved my life," Tony says firmly. _You came back for me._ "And before that, you made it so much better. And you still do."

He lets him go when Loki moves, sitting up again and pulling away in more ways than one. "I never answer your questions."

And still, Tony can't help but reach out for him. _Come back._ "I don't care. It doesn't matter." He catches Loki's arm, but lets him go almost at once, feeling the magician flinch. It's so, so small, but it's there.

When it comes right down to it, the question he most wants an answer to isn't _how do I explain quantum wormholes and stargates in mathematics and science?_

It's _what's wrong, Loki, and why won't you tell me?_

Loki's unhappy about something, and Tony knows it. He wants nothing more than to reach out and reassure him, to set things right.

What's changed? Other than everything. They were happy, for a while, and most of the time Tony could swear that they are still, but –

It can't be that Tony is all over the news and making a scene, because he was doing that all the time anyway, when he was still sneaking out to Las Vegas every chance he got, hoping Loki still wanted to see him.

Is it that what Tony's doing matters, now? That he's stopped being quite as silly, and started trying to change the world without blowing it up along the way? Now that Tony's throwing his weight around, could it be coming home to Loki that Tony's prominent and powerful and rich, and he's…what?

Someone anonymous. No one, outside his private, shadowy world in the secret backstage depths of Sin City.

Cruel people, ignorant people might say so, but Tony can't believe that. For one thing, whoever and whatever he is, Loki's not _no one._ He's never been intimidated by Tony, or outclassed. Even on the run from his past as he is, Loki has kept his head high and never acted like anything less than the aristocrat Tony had pegged him as from the beginning.

"I wish I knew what was wrong," Tony says, instead of all this. Speculating about Loki's past will get him nowhere, he knows. Might as well divide by zero, because zero is still all he's got.

Dammit, the last time he was struggling this hard to say words he thought he should, it didn't turn out so well for him. But once again, he feels like he has to say them. At least this time, they might only hurt him. "Loki…if you're not happy here, with me… I didn't mean it, that morning I sent you away, like you were just another cheap date. I was stupid, you know that, right?"

Ice crackles across Loki's momentarily baffled expression, and that telling muscle in his jaw pulls tight with remembered anger and hurt. "I know. I was there."

"Shit," Tony curses, wholeheartedly. His hands have formed fists against his will; he forces them open. "I'm sorry, all right?"

Loki looks away. "You were hurting. It wasn't your fault." Something unknots in Tony's chest, pure relief. "People are…stupid, when we're hurting."

In his haste to speak before he loses his nerve, Tony misses the _we._ "Because you're not. Some cheap date. You're not. You're closer to me than anyone has ever been, I think. But –"

 _No, no, no, don't!_ his battered heart shrieks. _Don't say it, don't open that door again!_

"…if you're not happy here," Tony goes on doggedly, "if the mess I've made of my life and everything I touch is something you don't want to be part of, you don't have to be." There is a razorblade in his throat, that he speaks around anyway. "I don't think you're having fun anymore, and that's not good. You're amazing, and you should be –"

He can say all this stupid nonsense only because Loki's nearly leapt from the couch, up on his feet and turned away, unable or unwilling to look at Tony while he babbles. He's wrapped his arms around himself as if he's cold, and his shoulders are hunched defensively, the very picture of hurt.

"Stop," Loki cuts him off, voice icy, the words a whip-crack of command. "Just…don't. That's not helping."

"I don't understand," Tony says, and it's perhaps the very truest thing he's ever said.

"Just _stop,_ " and it's no longer a command but a plea. "You're making it worse." Loki sighs, and relaxes with what looks like a physical effort, deliberately playing at ease to make himself believe it, body directing mind. "I want to be here, pet. You don't know – I want to. I do. But…"

He hesitates, biting at his lower lip. "You've made enemies," he says finally. "And you're going to make more. And you don't need mine too –"

"That's what you're worried about?" Tony almost shouts. "Oh, for fuck's _sake_ , Loki, I thought… We'll handle them, okay? Whoever they are. You and me."

Loki shrugs, hands opening in aimless confusion. "It's just…I've been away a long time, and…the other day, I forgot. _I forgot,_ " he says, and the hurt and muted horror in that… "And I don't want to –" Loki cuts himself off again. "It's not important."

He's stepped away, and everything Tony knows about receiving signals someone else is sending tells him to stay away. But he can't. Not from this man he's grown to care for, hemmed in on all sides by nameless hurts. So Tony follows him, not cornering him between the other couch and the wall, just staying close.

"You could belong here," he says. It's the only thing he believes he has to offer against a family and a home and a place in the world, taken away.

"You have no idea how wrong you are."

And that…hurts. "I want you here," Tony answers anyway. _People are stupid, when we're hurting,_ his memories catch up just in time.

"I know," whispers Loki, just loud enough for Tony to hear him, before he physically pushes the conversation aside, breaking off and striding back towards the stargate under construction. In a single quick gesture, he disarms the Biting Box, and the warning light and charged field disappear, leaving him free to open the panel he was working on earlier, hidden behind the bulk of the metal frame.

* * *

And then, Loki makes a mistake.

* * *

"I might be ready to switch this on in a couple of days," he says a few minutes later, after Tony has gone back to the freshly compiled code for the absolute positioning system and lost himself in something he understands a lot better than his magician.

And that's enough to shove the bedraggled, wounded remnants of that conversation away. "No kidding?" Tony almost yelps, sitting up and nearly climbing over the back of the couch. "Really? Just like that? That soon?"

More and more, he's realizing that there's a clock in his chest, not an electromagnet. He might not have only a week to live, but he probably doesn't have the decade and more it's going to take _Kite_ 's descendants to carry humans to Mars the long way around.

But maybe, _maybe,_ that dream is closer than he could have imagined.

What if he – if _they_ – could win Pascal's wager, against all odds?

Loki smiles at him as if they'd never argued, as if there was nothing for them to worry about but the project. "I know what I'm doing," he says, amusement back in his voice. "I've just made it bigger."

"Well, yeah, but –" Tony runs out of words, which is possibly a first.

"Finish your programming, pet," Loki says, fondly. "And then we'll see what we've made, you and I."

* * *

The decanter rattles against the lip of the glass as Tony pours, and he laughs even at himself as Loki grins at him over it.

"Shut up," he says, on habit, even though Loki hasn't said a thing. "You're as nervous as I am, look at you."

And true, Loki's hand is shaking just a little bit, to go with the fervid light in his eyes. He makes a sound that's almost a _hmph_ and tosses back the sharp scotch like it's water.

"That's more like it," Tony approves. "If this works, I'm getting you drunk tonight. Deal?"

His lover laughs, wicked and delighted. "It's just a test run," he deflects, although neither of them believe it. Tony has never been one to start small. Cables trail from the mad construction in the center of the room, tangling around each other on their way to the computer console set well back from the aperture and off into the airtight bunker in the back wall, and Tony's made no secret of hoping that it's going to do more than just light up and hum.

He wants _fireworks_ , dammit, and the shot of scotch, lighting up his nerves and scorching out whatever shit is floating around in his veins, is a good start.

No sooner has he blinked away the sparks bursting behind his eyes than Loki's taken the decanter away from him and refilled both their glasses. "We could wait," he says, voice low and suggestive, eyes coy, like he's talking about something else entirely.

Tony doesn't quite lick his lips at the deliberately sultry tone. There's a drop of scotch in the corner of his mouth, that's all, and it has nothing to do with the burning excitement poorly hidden beneath Loki's nonchalant mask.

It's not bad advice. Tony doesn't have a clue how this machine is supposed to work _right_ , much less how it might go wrong, and anything this new and untested has a labyrinth of ways to go wrong that hasn't been fully explored yet. But the thought of leaving this just _sitting_ here, waiting, idling, is like turning the key in a new car, listening to the engine, and turning it off again.

Seriously, who is Loki kidding? (Neither of them, he suspects.) Technology just out of reach, but maybe not if he just _stretches_ , is Tony's first love and his most primal temptation, and irresistible.

Instead, he lifts his glass in a toast. "Run before you walk," he quotes, tapping his glass against Loki's and listening to it ring, the note pure and clear. "Fly before you crawl."

They drink to that, and Tony nearly slams his glass down on the long worktable they're standing around. "Let's do this thing."

Whatever it is they've built, it looks impressive. The cables trailing across the floor are chaotic, but in an in-progress way, not a stuff-dropped-on-the-floor way. Earlier today, Tony had gone on a jagged rant about proper workspace management. Where it had come from, he had no idea, given the usual state of his workshop. While he ranted, he'd chivvied them into some pretense of organization, so at least they only have to step over a couple of thick bundles rather than tiptoeing through cables everywhere underfoot. Some of the cables run into the bunker, where there's a backup console, just in case their pet stargate opens on a vacuum or in the seriously low-pressure atmosphere of Mars and sucks all the air out of the room in a worryingly literal way. The main control interface is a repurposed computer, installed on a standing desk that Tony borrowed from an office last week.

He'd actually said, "I need this," and walked off with it, and no one had bothered to stop him. And if driving home with it in the back of the Jaguar looked ridiculous, then that wasn't his problem.

An array of sensors – a video camera, a seismograph, four Geiger counters, a spectrograph, and others besides – crouch around the console, business ends pointed at the machine. Tony had gathered them up and networked them to the computer terminal after Loki had kicked him out and said there was no more he could do to help. So he'd made his own fun.

Science requires documentation, after all.

"At some point, we should probably look into bringing in an expert," he'd said as he'd switched on the Geiger counters for a baseline reading. "There's got to be someone who knows about things like this. Someone out there's researching wormholes, at least theoretically. Other than you, of course."

"Perhaps," Loki had replied, perfectly noncommittal.

While he'd been gone, the frame of the machine – they're going to have to call it something other than _stargate_ , probably – had acquired several chunks of what seem to be crystal, or gemstone, their surfaces smooth but interiors clouded and mysterious. Personally, Tony thinks they're for effect, Loki unable to resist the look of them, magician to the last. But it's possible that they're prisms of some sort, to focus and redirect the energy the arc reactor glowing at the apex is going to send through them. Light can be focused, even slowed and stopped, with certain materials; that's all lenses are.

"I'm still not totally sure about the air pressure," he says now as he sets his empty glass down and circles around the machine.

There's nothing stopping him from walking _through_ it, through the open ring, but he's never done so, and he's never caught Loki doing so either. It's not like it'll _change_ anything, if they do, and of course Tony is a scientist and not superstitious at all…but he's also an engineer, and engineers are superstitious as _hell_ , because sometimes getting things to work right involves more voodoo than the technical manuals would have people believe.

"It might get very cold in here in a minute," he adds, trying to keep his voice level and his face straight, as if this was any old test run, just another data point. As if any result will be enough, and they'll mark up the results and reset everything and try again, because it's not science until it's repeatable, verifiable, reliable.

Following in his footsteps, Loki waves a hand in a small gesture of dismissal. "If it's that successful," he says, "we'll just switch it off again with that override button you insisted on installing."

It's big and red; Tony's not sorry.

"Oh, of course. Of course. It's just a test run."

Even Tony doesn't believe in his "cool and skeptical" act. He feels like he's at the top of the world's biggest roller coaster, or like he's back in his own garage workshop, in a stable hover on repulsor power for the first time, everything locking into place and everything _else_ beckoning.

 _Impossible, impossible_ …but there's a machine to play with and a computer program to initialize, and at worst there's a machine to debug and an experimental process to start again. There's the hum of his own arc reactor in his chest – he still thinks they react to each other, the energy in one harmonizing with the energy in the other – and the shaky-hands feeling of being at the beginning of something.

Tony wakes up the computer, and hunts up the very basic program that will tell the arc reactor to start discharging its energy.

"One small step," he mutters, as much to himself as to Loki.

On the other side of the ring, which sets the two of them at the east and west of the circle, Loki doesn't respond, which is so unusual that Tony turns around to look and make sure he's actually there.

God, Tony's seen metal bending under an unstoppable force that looked less stressed than Loki does. He's staring at the machine like a hawk looking into the sun, hands clenched into fists at his side; the tendons in his wrists are visible with the strain he's putting on them, and his knuckles are white. For just a second, there's a look on his face that Tony can only describe as _hungry_ , desperate and needy and wildly excited. It's fierce, almost, and overpowering.

And the moment he realizes Tony is looking at him, Loki tears his eyes away and shakes himself, smiling and stepping back. His hands unfold and spread, his shoulders relax beneath the slightly archaic loose tunic that would have looked at home in a Renaissance Faire, and he turns towards his friend, attentive and excited once more. Only eager, and curious.

 _That's fake,_ something in Tony whispers, but he doesn't have time to process that before Loki laughs softly and says, "Thank you."

"What for?" Tony asks automatically.

Loki's expression softens, affectionate – still with that edge of mockery in it, but that's just Loki; even sprawled out exhausted and shuddering through the aftershocks, there's always something in him on the lookout for the taunt and the sarcastic glance, and really, Tony's kind of crazy about that.

"Trusting me," Loki explains – sort of. "There's no reason you should have." The corner of his mouth twists, wry and self-deprecating. "And there are plenty of reasons you shouldn't. But…"

He cuts himself off with a sigh, turns his hands up in a shrug. "Tony, you…you don't know what that means to me. Truly, you have no idea."

Man, but Tony does – he thinks of Pepper's smile, as he faced the world proudly and reinvented himself, taking one step closer to the person she's always believed in him to be. But there's a strange note in Loki's voice, and that's what he seizes on.

"Hey, hey, it's just a test run, Loki! What, you think as soon as this works I won't need you anymore? Of course I will!"

He abandons the waiting computer console, taking the few steps necessary to wrap his hands around Loki's arms, holding him there. His lover is still unbearably tense, beneath his hands, and Tony brushes his fingers gently up the column of Loki's bare throat, caressing.

Eyes closing, almost in a flinch, Loki leans into the touch, but reluctantly, somehow.

"So don't sound like you're saying goodbye," Tony finishes, pretending to shake him – pretending, only because he doesn't need to, because Loki is trembling with what Tony hopes is excitement and anticipation over the miracle they're going to pull off right here, right now.

He feels the reluctant smile more than sees it, as Loki closes the last breath's distance and kisses him softly, barely more than a touch. "Well," he says in the wake of it, "if this blows us both up, maybe it's my last chance."

"I hate you," Tony says, laughing, and punches him; Loki takes the blow to the chest like it's nothing, chuckling and pushing Tony away only to catch him again.

"That's not funny," Tony warns, actually waving a finger at his magician from within the circle of the arms around his waist. "If this even starts, if it even _flickers_ , I'll consider it a success."

Still, he eyeballs the machine a bit more skeptically. He's very much _not_ a fan of being blown up, and the thought worries him on a dark, terrified level that will probably bleed into his dreams and his quieter moments for the rest of his life, however much time he has remaining to him.

Maybe they _should –_

Loki says, "Truce, pet, truce; I meant nothing by it." He glances over Tony's shoulder, towards the computer console waiting for them. "Shall we?"

"Now _that's_ what I'm talking about! Hell yeah!"

Back at the computer, Tony types for a moment, bringing online the program he'd written on a best guess and hope. His hand hovers over _Enter_ , and for a moment he can't move as the memories light up and bite into him.

 _Yinsen_ , hand over the ancient computer in the same way, and how _frightened_ Tony had been, talking through the fear and refusing to show it, snapping commands because if he was in charge, then he had to act like it. Had to save them both, more lives than his stupid one riding on staying in control. The hateful, humid darkness of their workshop and their prison. The knowledge that any moment now, someone was going to force their way through that door and it was going to blow itself to splinters and they weren't going to be ready and they didn't have _time…_

And the freezing horror of Yinsen, voice calm and at peace with the knowledge that he was going to die, as he said, "I'm gonna buy you some time," and Tony couldn't stop him, couldn't save him, because he'd been locked into the armor, at the mercy of the computer from the moment Yinsen had pressed _Enter_ …

This is different. This is home, not Afghanistan, and no one is shooting at them. It's just him and Loki, and Loki can look after himself, and there are no enemies behind the door they're going to open. It's only a test, and no one dies if it fails.

Still, he can feel the first great drop of this roller coaster at his feet, just waiting for the last little push, and he trembles on the edge.

The moment he presses this button, Tony loses control of what happens next. He can only wait while power builds and the technology does what he and his magician have designed it to do, and _only_ what they've designed it to do. So they've better have done it right in the first place.

He can only place all his chips on the table, roll the bones, and hope.

He presses _Enter_.

The computer hums acknowledgement, and the arc reactor at the top of the ring, like the prize jewel in a crown, lights up as Tony steps away from the machine. His feet moving on autopilot, he ends up at Loki's side, shoulder to shoulder with him, which seems right and proper.

Without looking at him, eyes still fixed on the machine, Loki takes his hand, his right gripping Tony's left and holding on tightly. And just as everything whirs to life, Tony realizes that Loki's hand is very cold, and shaking – the magician is _scared_.

Whatever this is, for Loki, it's not just a test run.

Tony squeezes his hand back, trying to convey without words that it's going to be all right. Even if it goes wrong and does nothing, Tony isn't going to blame him. Hadn't he said that already?

But then the faint hum, lingering just beneath the threshold of hearing, gains traction, the energy generated by the arc reactor finding its footing and getting _something_ started. The reactor flares bright, bright blue, and Tony doesn't quite manage to suppress a gasp of surprise as the color flows out to cover the entire ring, like the light was a liquid, pouring across the machine's surface like a shimmering enamel.

The blue light pools deeply in some places and breaks against others, sinking into strange patterns that emerge from the metal only when highlighted by the energy field. Newborn shapes twist into dizzying fractals, slithering around the framework, colliding with each other and merging, or recoiling and moving blindly away.

Blinking frantically as if that might clear the artifacts and optical illusions – it must be a trick of the light – Tony sees two shapes meet and _clash,_ one striking out at the other, which recoils and sidles away before lashing out in turn.

And then the patterns and the energy powering them, draining the arc reactor hungrily, seem to venture off the metal, venturing into the empty center of the ring, like the energy is alive and reaching out. Tendrils of light and their shadowy afterimages, reversed negatives burning across Tony's retinas, probe and slash like groping vines reaching for the sun, time-lapse sped up and brought into real time.

They meet each other and entangle, bright and dark and bright and _other_ , and then seem to fall away momentarily. Depth perception insists they're plummeting down a hole that isn't there, cannot be there, because at the same time they're getting no closer to the worktable and doors behind the ring. But almost at once they've rebounded, still caught in the cage of the ring as more and more energy is siphoned off from the spinning obstacle course of a racetrack that the frame has become.

Staring in shock and amazement and disbelief, Tony has raised his free hand to block out the brightest streaks of light as they scorch across his vision, but finds himself unable to look away. How could he? Faced with something as unknown, as _new_ , as this, whatever this is?

It's not loud, no louder than a car engine, all told, but Tony still feels like he should be yelling as he croaks out, past the mingled wonder and terror choking him, "What the hell…? Loki? Is it supposed to be doing that?"

Beside him, Loki answers, low and tense, "I think so."

"You _think?_ " and now he is yelling, and not before time.

When he does manage to look away, just for a second, he finds Loki staring intensely into the heart of the growing maelstrom as it whips and meshes and gathers itself to try to fall nowhere and fails again and again. The magician's eyes are narrowed, not in anger but in concentration.

"I can't see it," Loki hisses, and then gasps with what might almost be pleasure. "Oh, but I can see where it's _not!_ " And that's triumph, loud and obvious, as he snarls, " _Got you,_ you one-eyed old bastard –!"

Never before has Tony been so in earnest when he says, "What the hell?"

But Loki's deaf to him, as if they weren't hand in hand, and even as Tony speaks, the cluster of energy in the center of the ring hits some critical mass as it drains shapes and light and deeper currents from the framework surrounding it. The pulsing sound of cycling energy becomes a roar, and then a scream, as the miniature sun hovering within the ring surges, leaping away from them, further away and it stops, and again, and again, and again, and it never goes any further than the ring around it. But it's further away every time, like it's digging through some space that has no relationship to the rest of the workroom.

The light flares, and behind it, the arc reactor flickers, barely visible behind the greater light show it's powering and the machine is amplifying. Tony knows that flicker, knows it well, has ridden that flicker down to the edge of death and scraped his life back from the unforgiving impact when the lights go out. And the sound it's making is worse. Something is shrieking, stressed and shaking, and there's a scream he can't identify, but that he imagines is the sound of atoms being wrenched apart.

The metal and cables groan under the stress, and from somewhere there's an irregular rattle like a loose piece of metal in the engine of a car, and _hell_ , is Tony not cool with something that sounds so much like shrapnel, the ghost of all his nightmares coming back to haunt him.

No more than thirty seconds have gone by, but it's an eternity, and for once in his life, Tony is going to call it quits while he's ahead.

"Okay," he tries to shout over the frightening noises, "that's enough for a test run! It's doing something, all right! I'm impressed, Loki, okay? Let's _not_ blow ourselves up, I've done enough of that for one lifetime –"

He realizes even as he speaks that Loki can't hear him, and yelling louder won't help. Beside him, Loki is staring raptly, focused like a laser, with an _intensity_ that frightens Tony maybe even more than the out-of-control machine doing hell knows what. He's not moving, absolutely fixated on the stargate, his eyes fierce and glowing with reflected light, like a cat's. He's let go of Tony's hand at some point, and now his fists are clenched by his sides. And his lips are moving as if he might be _talking_ to the device, although Tony can't hear his voice over the scream of the technology.

To hell with that, Tony doesn't have time for prayer, or any faith in it. Clearly the machine's unstable, the blazing heart of it now flickering as an effect that looks like nothing more than static races across the juddering framework, and Tony doesn't like that at all.

Unstable, untested technology is always better at a distance, so he steps back, carefully skirting his way around it as far away as he can without butt-scooting his way across the bunker wall at his back. The door to the bunker is open, he notes with some relief, poised ready to slam closed the moment someone kicks loose the finely balanced counterweight holding it in place.

Tony reaches for the big red abort button, hand raised –

– and stops short.

He wants to take the last few steps towards pressing that button, but he _can't move_. Something is holding him tightly, keeping him from moving any closer to it. He can lower his hand, he can lean back, but he cannot move towards it any more than he can walk through walls.

But he can turn around.

Backlit by surging energy, Loki stands with a hand stretched out towards him, eyes wild, teeth bared.

"What the –" Tony breathes in absolute disbelief, no more than a whisper, but _now_ Loki hears him.

"No," Loki snarls. " _No!_ Leave it!"

At a loss, Tony fights the force holding him in place. He's not paralyzed, his body is answering him, but it's as if there's a wall in his way or a force pulling him backwards, like invisible ropes binding him and holding him still. He can't move. He's not being _allowed_ to move…

"But –" he blurts.

" _Leave it_ , damn you!" Loki roars, and there's genuine rage in his voice and clawing nasty gouges into his face as behind him, the stargate wails in a new key. The thrashing, sparking lights blur together, moving too fast to follow.

Panting, Loki gathers himself, one hand still outstretched. "So help me," he curses, and it's clearly a curse, "I _like_ you, Tony. I really, really do. So help me, I do." His eyes are cold and deadly earnest. "But if you set yourself against me now…I will hurt you if I must. Please don't make me."

And it's that last, the _please_ like it makes a difference, as impossibility piles upon impossibility ready to trip Tony up and remove the solid ground beneath his feet, that strikes at Tony hardest. It's a familiar and true note in a symphony of strange and false ones, and he pauses, trying to think over the rattling scream of the machine and the absolute bafflement that's seized him as inescapably as – _what?_

He's trying to stay calm even as the cold dark waters of betrayal lap at his ankles. It's only a tug now, but just up the river, the floodwaters are massing, ready to plunge down and sweep him away.

Tony forces calm into his voice as he says, "Loki, what is this? Why can't I move?"

"I don't _want_ to hurt you," Loki answers, and it's no answer at all. He's gasping with a mixture of emotions Tony can't identify, caught up in the strength of them. "Promise me you'll let it be, and I'll let you go."

"You're doing this," Tony says, still fighting for calm. This impossible thing – there's no sonic paralyzer in Loki's hand, no camouflaged-into-invisibility ropes wrapped around Tony's body like Indiana Jones' whip. He'd be able to feel them, and Loki would have to have the other end of them in his hand, and the one stretched towards him still is open, fingers spread.

He asks the big question, as the writhing light bores through _elsewhere_. "How?"

And there's guilt, _guilt_ in Loki's eyes, shameful and hurting, sorry but unflinching, and Tony's heart sinks, already surrendering beneath the floodwaters bearing down.

"I didn't lie to you," says Loki.

He raises his other hand, and snaps his fingers once.

The light from the machine is ever-shifting, but beneath it, energy flares and ripples around Loki's body, solidifying from faintly golden light into black and green-dyed leather, tight-cut and protective, metal plates set into it, banded across his chest like the suggestion of bandoliers, and the long tails of an elegant and unusual jacket – no, it's a _surcoat_ , with mail accents like dragon scales scything across it and a high, close collar – materializing from nowhere at all.

It's almost a combat suit, but more ornate, showier, and the word _armor_ springs to mind. It's distinctive and exotic and archaic, and no one on Earth would wear that unironically, but it fits Loki perfectly, like it was made for him, and it fits _him_ , too; fits the way he carries himself and the way he moves that Tony knows so well. And it's not a costume – there are nicks in the leather and worn points on the metal, dents and scuffs, small but there; if it's armor, it's armor that has been used hard and often and in earnest.

There's no holoprojector in either of his hands, Tony has had them in view the whole time, and there's no way Loki was wearing that under his everyday clothes. Only minutes ago, Tony had his hands on the magician's shoulders, his arms wrapped around his back, his hand on Loki's chest, and none of that was anywhere to be felt. As quick changes go, that was magical –

No.

Somehow, _somehow_ , that was _magic._ But how on earth…

The chaos in the depths of the machine is still building, roaring and convulsing and thrashing, striving to overcome some last obstacle. Surges of energy tear into the fabric of the universe, ripping at it.

And Tony remembers a hundred offhand comments: _magic, magic; I'm from space; I fell out of the sky._

When he speaks, his voice is flat, cold, bitter, disbelieving, but he's also not fighting the…force…holding him in place anymore. "Whatever the fuck this is, it isn't going to Mars, is it?"

Loki meets his eyes, sorrowful but relentless, and shakes his head _no_.

The stargate _screams_ in a higher key, and the energy within it seems to explode, dissipating all at once and leaving –

A haze, which clears in a breath, and it's as if a window has opened on a still more glorious dawn.

Beyond, within, through – wherever! – there's a clear blue sky, and a cityscape like nothing Tony's ever seen, built across mountain peaks and cliff edges, falling away dangerously, linked by elegantly curving bridges leading to winding streets cutting between terraces and pavilions, and all overshadowed by something too large to be a building, but too artificial to be a mountain range. Trees and vines grow over balconies and spill from ledges, and the sun that shines down on them is just a little bit too golden, or maybe that's the reflection from the building-mountain. The shifting sparks in the distance can only be waves on an ocean, and if he squints he can maybe make out _people_ far below, moving through the streets and paths and in and out of the buildings just like people everywhere. He doesn't even have _words_ for some of what he's seeing, except that it's beautiful, and completely alien. Some of the buildings, Monolith-dark, are _floating_ , unsupported as they hover around each other.

Tony actually feels his jaw drop open a little way, and doesn't care. He's awestruck. It's not Mars, but it's clearly somewhere else.

"What is…" he gets out. "No – _where_ is that?"

" _Home."_

Maybe only the sheer emotion in Loki's voice could have torn Tony's gaze away from that vision. The expression on the magician's face is agonizing, all longing and yearning, pure desperate hope and absolute need, and it's maybe the most honest thing he's ever seen on Loki's fine-boned face.

"Asgard," he says like a prayer. "My world."

Tony's mouth is dry with disbelief and wonder, but somehow he manages to choke out, as he stumbles through everything he hasn't been told – but he _was –_ "That's – you really are –"

Loki laughs like a man surfacing from deep, deep water and finally finding open air, arms flung wide in pure exhilaration. "Not human? From another world? Really actually magic?" Tony can see the mask and the costume, the _persona_ , he's been wearing, that he's worn for as long as Tony has known him fall away from him; his secret out, and so who, really, has Tony known? "Yes, yes, yes all!"

His eyes are very bright with that alien sunlight glancing off them, as he turns to Tony with a wild, exultant smile on his lips. "I don't belong here, I never have, and I'm going _home!_ "

The words and that sunlight cut through Tony like one of Loki's own knives, because here's the heart of it, and he stands betrayed again, wounded by someone he trusted, that he –

Because here is what Loki really wanted. He knew Loki wanted something from him all along, because everyone does, but Tony let himself forget, too caught up in green eyes and the Real Smile, seduction and sex and fascination. Loki pulled him back from death because he couldn't let that investment go to waste, Tony realizes, heart drowning, and _idiot_ that he is, Tony has been speaking soft words of –

And all the while, Loki has been playing him, a long game and one Tony could never have seen coming.

Although… _space_ , Loki says, in a Vegas bar, when Tony asks him _where are you from?_ and smiles; _magic_ , Loki says, on the roof of the Stratosphere, and smiles.

Tony, at last, believes it all.

Unable to look at the exhilarated, treacherous magician – and magician he is, in truth, for if this is science cutting a window from one world to another, it's science truly indistinguishable from magic – Tony stares instead at the glorious, golden city through that opening door. At first he thinks the haze is in his own eyes, but when he blinks furiously, refusing to raise a hand to wipe them clear, the blur remains. The image of the shining city – Asgard – through the stargate refuses to come all the way into focus, even as the view of the other side dips lower, as if coming in for a landing, on final approach towards that towering building. If it's even a building. It's almost too big. The scale of it puts anything on Earth to shame; it's like a mountain range made from organ pipes, arrogantly indifferent to anything as pedestrian as physics.

Out of the corner of his eye, Tony is aware of Loki, wound up and waiting like a runner at the blocks, straining towards the moment the starter pistol fires and sets him free to leap from this world back to his own.

He imagines two bubbles bumping against each other, even holding his breath as they both wait to see if those bubbles will rebound or stick together or merge.

…or _burst_ , it occurs to Tony suddenly, especially as the machine, momentarily forgotten under the spell that vision has cast on magician and engineer alike, finds new voice and wails. Powerful forces rattle it, and something deep within it crunches. It sounds horribly unstable, more so with each passing moment, and terrifying.

"Loki," he shouts over it, as the sounds of an overload redouble, "I know you're – I know you want to – oh, _fuck_ , you're real! – but you hear that? That's not good! That's never good! It's not safe, we need to get out of here, now!"

Even as he speaks, the image wavers, slipping further out of focus.

" _No!"_ Loki yowls, more to the universe than to Tony, and raises both hands against the open stargate. For the first time, Tony really _sees_ him pouring power – magic – into something, light and space warping around him. It's not lightning, but shadow, glowing and green-tinged like velvet, and like stardust sparking around his hands.

As he does so, Tony realizes that whatever hold Loki had on him, keeping him in place and away from the kill switch, is gone. Everything Loki has and can muster is being put into _forcing_ the stargate to work, to open fully and let him through, away from this world and back to the home he's been dreaming of and planning his way back to all along. Loki's face is twisted into a snarl, effort cracking through his body beneath that alien, archaic leather armor, and the sheer desperation is like a scream.

But he can't even think about the kill switch, the same as he can't get any closer to the struggle playing out between raw forces before him. He's fascinated…in a horrible, betrayed sort of way…by what he's already started to think of as the _real_ Loki, the alien magician trying to command the universe to yield to him with only his will and an outstretched hand.

And at the same time – that's an alien world over there! Holy _fuck_ , that's an _inhabited, high-technology_ alien world over there!

Hurt and deceived as he is, beneath the scream trying to claw its way out of his throat in response to the rattling shrapnel he can hear as the machine starts to tear itself apart, as much as he wants to dive for the bunker in the back wall and slam the door behind him – still, sentimental fool that he is, he doesn't want to leave Loki.

Even as he thinks it, he knows clearly that Loki _won't go_ except through that door into elsewhere. It hovers like a fever dream, like a shadow on the road just out of reach, as Loki fights to keep it open on willpower and energy he seems to be pulling from his own body, cheeks hollowing further and already-pale skin going sallow in the alien sunlight as he struggles with it – with the _magic_.

Tony has to try.

"It's not safe!" Tony shouts over the din, almost pleading. "Loki, please, can't you hear that? Get away from it! It's not going to work –" and in some madness, he steps forward against all his instincts and brushes his fingers against Loki's shoulder.

Maybe he expects the energy crackling from Loki's hands to jump through him like a static shock, because he flinches backwards even as he does. But it's nothing so exotic that strikes him – Loki lowers his hand for a brief second to shove Tony away physically.

" _It has to!"_ Loki wails as Tony stumbles backwards, nearly tripping over one of the cable bundles. They lead straight back to the safety of the bunker, but it feels like leaving Loki behind, and how could he tear himself away?

Tony's frozen, almost, and he can only watch in horror as Loki struggles to make his road out of exile work on willpower alone, _fighting_ it.

For a perfect, solitary moment, it stabilizes, and the sunlight of Asgard shines through into the basement workshop clearly. Tony sees the shadows burn from Loki's face for a second under its light –

And then something in the machine surges, as Loki pushes it too far, and that split second is broken by a tiny sound beneath the chaos.

It sounds like nothing more than shattering glass.

A fraction of a second before everything goes white, there's a flash of evanescent green across Tony's field of vision, and then the world – workshop, stargate, alien planet, cables, computers, the alien magician at his side – goes away.

The world-shaking roar of the explosion _almost_ drowns out a sound so agonized it's nearly inhuman, as Loki screams in heartbreak and despair.

* * *

 _To be continued._


	11. Now You See Me

ON WITH THE SHOW!

 **Chapter Eleven: Now You See Me**

Tony regains consciousness onto a kind of hell.

Smoke thick in the air swims around him, heavy and choking, and the dull flickering light of scattered fires glowers from beneath a shattered landscape all around. Somehow, none of it has fallen on him, and it takes Tony several long seconds to understand what he's seeing, and where he's seeing it from, and realize that he's fallen – been knocked – to his knees. The skin of his forearms remembers the heat of the explosion that's torn the workroom to shreds, shrinking and cringing even as he lowers them to see –

Devastation. He can barely see more than an arm's length into the burning darkness, but wreckage and ruin cast long shadows, more felt than seen. Broken pipes spew steam and shake gravel from the ceiling, trailing wires burn like fuses, and deep cracks tear into the sections of the ceiling that fared _best_ – elsewhere, great shards of concrete have collapsed to the floor like an indoor avalanche. The reflection of sullen flames, the only source of light, draws his eye to a piece of metal embedded in the charred wall behind him. It's been twisted and warped by incredible heat and force, and other glints betray the presence of shrapnel heavy and sharp enough to slice a body clean in two.

Something has happened here, something bad, and Tony is going to have to deal with it. But there's _fire_ , and this is one of his labs, and the fire suppression system isn't working, because –

 _EMP_ , his brain creaks into gear, groping for anything it can catch onto like a bicycle that's thrown its chain. _Arc reactor blew up. Knocked out anything electric in range…_

The fire. First things first, and he'll worry about the rest when he's figured out what it is. Gotta put out the fire.

Something must have hit him, although the ringing in his ears isn't bad, no more than what's left when he switches the lathe off after a long session reshaping something or other. But there's a faint green haze across his vision, casting less light than the arc reactor in his chest, which itself casts less ambient light than he'd thought at first, and totally unhelpful. Tony blinks it away as he gets to his feet and stumbles forward, and it vanishes.

That first step takes him head-on into a billowing cloud of thick, gritty smoke, and on instinct he drops to his knees again and crawls, heading for the wall on his left. There's a fire extinguisher there. There's always a fire extinguisher or six around in his labs.

It tastes _horrible_ , catching in his lungs and coating them with the stench of burnt stone and stressed metal and the phantom stink of scorched flesh. Somehow, Tony keeps moving as his body tries to dry-heave the air back up. He needs the oxygen, even if it smells like the Ten Rings' camp after he and the Mark I suit got medieval on their asses.

For an endless moment of crawling steps, like he's caught in a loop, he thinks he's back there. He never left. He will always be _right here_ , amidst the failure and the terror and the pain, trapped in the dark confines of heated metal, and alone because the friend by his side is gone, _he lost them_ , and nothing he does will ever be good enough to get him out of this hell…

And then his waving hand falls on the familiar curve of a fire extinguisher. The metal is warm to the touch but not burning, not scorching, not torn and ruptured, and Tony pulls it toward him like a lifeline. He sets his back against the wall it came from, and turns the nozzle on the nightmare around him with all the righteous fury this little anti-flamethrower can muster.

The blast of carbon dioxide beats the smoke back, and clears a space in which he can see. And that's progress, even if it's a space in which he can _think_ , too, and thinking means remembering, and icy despair sweeps over him, leaching into him from the sudden cold of the canister.

Again, something has blown up in his face that he set in motion with unwarranted confidence, everything around him has been destroyed, and – no, _no,_ this time he has most certainly lost Loki, too.

Tony still isn't sure why he's alive, with the shrapnel of their crazy machine embedded in the walls like some sort of psychotic modern art. _Study in Destruction, No. 2._

And even if Loki was as lucky, even if he's survived, Tony remembers the magician – the sorcerer like some mad _god_ – he'd seen there at the end, just for seconds. That was the real one, he knows now, and the man he'd shared his bed and his life with had been nothing but a disguise. A lie.

And a cruel one, something put together and proffered only to put Tony _right back here_ again, amongst the rubble and the flames.

The blame for this is not his this time, but it doesn't help at all to blame it on Loki. For one thing, Tony wants to yell at him to his face about this, in depth and in detail and at volume, and there's a horrible, yawning darkness in the pit of his stomach that says he will never get the chance.

Somewhere out there, among the flames, is the man he believed to be his friend lying burnt and still and dead? _Shit_ , Tony can't face that.

So he doesn't. He goes after the pockets of fire like he's waging war on them, him and his canister of safety. He'll control what he can. Fix what he can. Do what he can. And handle the rest as it comes.

Putting out the fires should plunge the destroyed lab into Stygian darkness, but as the smoke clears, Tony finds that some of the lighting panels in the roof are creaking back to life. They're faint and flickering and running on dregs, but slowly, the room begins to clear, aided by the air vents in the ceiling. They're not working well, but they're trying. It's enough for him to avoid falling over chunks of jagged-edged concrete with rebar jutting out from them, or the wreckage of the sensors he'd directed at their stargate, or the warped form of the base of the gate, wrenched from its moorings and shaken to pieces.

At first he doesn't realize what he's seeing, as a blast of carbon dioxide annihilates a cloud of smoke and they settle in greasy mutual destruction to the floor, but when he does, a broken cry escapes him and he drops the extinguisher from suddenly numb hands.

"No." It should be a scream, but instead it emerges as a whisper. "No. God, no."

Tony is, for a moment, absolutely certain that Loki's dead. The magician is slumped against the wall, not like he's collapsed there, but like he was _thrown_ there. There's blood on the wall behind him, a dark shadow above his head, and a network of cracks webbing out from that impact point like a giant, malevolent spider. His head has lolled to one side limply, something dark and viscous dripping from his lips, and his eyes are closed. Even through the leather armor still in place around him, Tony can see one side of his ribs cruelly caved in. The hands lying motionless are burned and blackened all the way up to his elbows, visible beneath shredded, ragged sleeves, like he'd raised them to protect his face.

And there, only there, does Tony see any sign of life. The ashes of that explosion have coated Loki along with everything else in this destroyed room, but his face is slightly cleaner, wet in matching stripes.

Desperate hope fighting its way out of the painful tug at his heart, Tony stumbles towards him. All his anger and betrayal are momentarily forgotten – to _hell_ with that, if only he can chew Loki out properly later – later! Magic word.

If only he's alive to be fought with. Later.

Once Tony's looking, once he's gotten past his instinctive horrified need to look anywhere else, he realizes that Loki's breathing, shallowly and painfully, more in gasps than steady breaths, but it's movement, he's alive!

"Loki –" Tony croaks, crouching beside him and starting to reach out, "are you –"

However that sentence would have ended, Tony never gets to find out, because Loki's eyes fly open and despite the wall at his back and the massive amount of damage to his body, he tries to pull away, actively recoiling. Eyes wide in what might be horror, or fear, he turns his head away from the hand moving towards him.

"St – stay away," he tries to snarl, but it comes out as a ragged gasp. "Keep back – don't –"

What's left of his hands shifts as if he's trying to scramble away, but the moment they move, a narrow scream chokes off whatever else he meant to say. "No –" he manages, eyes rolling wildly. Tony's hand may as well be a spider, the way Loki's looking at it. "No, don't –"

Tony doesn't understand that, but he doesn't have to. "It's okay, it's okay, it's only me. Loki, it's Tony, I don't know what you're seeing, but you hit your head, you hit it bad. Whatever you're seeing, it's not real. Listen to my voice." He swallows down a whimper of sympathetic pain; those beautiful _hands…_

"How are you even _alive_?" he whispers. "I'm calling for help –"

And that theory goes straight out the window, as Loki meets his eyes, defiance and fear showing through clearly, and orders, " _No!"_ like a whip snapping.

That one command exhausts him, though, and his next words are a broken gasp. "No, no, don't! Don't –" He coughs, fresh blood flecking his lips; Tony hurts just _watching_ , as Loki puts together enough air to manage a full sentence. "You don't need to," he says. "I'm fine."

The noise that bursts from Tony's throat cannot, under any circumstances, be called a laugh. "You're – you _what?_ Okay, clearly you're a very practiced liar –" _You played me, you PLAYED ME, you mad bastard, be alive so I can fucking KILL YOU._ "– but that's the single weakest lie I've ever heard."

Loki tries to glare at him, but there's too much pain in it to work, and he's not focusing well. When Tony moves back just a little way, in response to the way Loki's still trying to escape from him – to where, he wonders, and how? – it takes those green eyes, clouded with smoke and impact now, a noticeable moment to focus on him. "I can fix this," he says, panting. He licks at his lips, which just makes them redder.

He's bleeding inside, Tony has to get him help _now –_

"I'll heal. My people are – we're built stronger than yours."

And Tony freezes, remembering, caught.

Loki's from somewhere else.

Loki _is_ something else, something not human.

"We heal – quickly. I'll be all right."

"To hell with that," Tony says anyway. "I'm –"

Loki won't let him, eyes rolling wildly. " _No!_ " he cries out again. "They'll – I'm not – Tony, please, no!"

There's panic, real panic in his voice. It holds Tony fixed there, on his knees among the ruins. There are still fires smoldering in the corners of the room and rubble settling into new equilibriums, and a man who's not a man, but some kind of space alien from another dimension where magic works, and whom Tony has _never_ understood. And he's…it's…he's begging – begging! – not for help, but to be left alone and in pain.

"You're really frightened," Tony says, at a loss, even as part of him wants to scramble away in instinctive, animal fear of this _something other_. But that's stupid, that's his ape ancestors running away from or throwing rocks at things they didn't understand, because anything they didn't understand was probably a hungry leopard.

He knows that, on some level, but it's hard to feel and believe that throwing rocks isn't the right and obvious choice of action. Not in the face of the bubbling, boiling acid _rage_ building in his gut.

The magician flinches, and bites into his lip when the movement just hurts more, and whimpers slightly at that, with breath he doesn't have. His lips are _very_ red, and none of it is health and happiness. Throughout it all, the whole Rube Goldberg machine of suffering, Loki won't meet his eyes, in –

Shame?

Tony looks down at him, at this man who has always been in control, playing his long game, keeping Tony guessing and enchanted, and with the ultimate ace up his sleeve the whole time. Magic. Real, beyond-the-laws-of-physics, so-mote-it-be magic. How he must have _laughed_ , at Tony's futile guessing, waving the truth like a joke and knowing it would be taken as such.

Loki could do anything – except, it seems, go home – and now here he is, broken and exhausted, at the mercy of the man he used and deceived.

But it's not Tony he seems afraid of, really, now that Tony's left off trying to get him help. While Tony's only sitting here puzzling, even if he's also trying to restrain the urge to scream and lash out, Loki's fallen still again. His eyes are fluttering closed, clearly-broken ribs heaving painfully, and he keeps licking at his lips and finding nothing there but blood. Tony's no further away, but Loki's calmed as much as he can.

It's not Tony, then, but… "Why wouldn't you –" _want medical help_ , is on the tip of Tony's tongue, and then a thought strikes him.

"Wait," he says aloud. "Whoa. Hang on a minute. So, you're actually…not human."

Loki's eyes open very slightly, shift towards him; the magician says nothing.

 _Holy shit,_ there's a real and somehow still alive extraterrestrial an arm's length from him; how did he never _notice?_ "Um…so I've got to ask…what are you, then?"

Tony can almost hear the words being physically pulled from Loki's throat. "Asgardian," he says curtly, and Tony remembers _"Asgard, my world"_ uttered like a prayer. "Aesir."

Conversations he never thought he'd be having on a destroyed workshop floor, number 28… He vaguely remembers some of the Viking myths he'd read, years ago, when he thought Loki was someone he might be able to figure out on his own. Hadn't they used those terms?

"Is that the same thing?" Somewhere in the back of his mind, Tony is still convinced that Loki's concussed and talking nonsense, but all he can apply of basic first-aid is to keep Loki awake and talking, since the man – Asgardian? – won't let him do anything else.

It occurs to Tony that he's not sure how Loki plans to _stop_ him, should the engineer choose to do something and follow through.

"You're…from Earth. Human." Loki has to stop to fight for breath. "I'm Asgardian. Aesir."

"Okay," Tony says. "Right." He can hear the words, but he's not processing any of them, and his mouth moves on his own. "So the aliens really have landed."

Loki takes it literally, probably not up to dealing with Tony's reflexive sarcasm right now. "No," he says. "Just me. And…not landed…so much as fallen."

That, Tony does hear. And he looks again at the desperation and fear on Loki's face, like someone hunted. Realizes that he's hurt and helpless. He puts that together with what he's known for years, that Loki's alone and in hiding, on the run.

And what does that sound like?

What happens, in short, to lone aliens crash-landed in the Nevada desert?

"Wait. _Fuck,_ " Tony swears wholeheartedly. "And you've been living in Las Vegas. In Nevada. So you've been hearing Area 51 rumors. There's a ton of stuff about it hidden all over Vegas. I used to tease you about it – goddammit, Loki!" It comes out as a roar, and as a plea. "I'm not going to hurt you! Or hand you over to be…taken apart, or whatever!"

In the poor lighting, he barely catches the way Loki flinches – but _that's_ shame, and it screams as loud as a klaxon that yeah, somewhere, underneath it all, Loki has always been afraid of just that.

True magician, powerful alien from another planet or dimension, or whatever, but he's Gulliver among the Lilliputians, and there are _so many more_ Lilliputians.

"Who the hell do you think I am?" Tony demands, outraged at the thought of betraying him that way. Treacherous bastard Loki may be, but even the idea of calling up, who, SHIELD? and saying _hey, so I just blew up a real-life space alien, kind of by accident, want to come take him off my hands and see what makes him tick?_ makes Tony nauseous.

"I'd never, Loki. I'd _never._ But actually, while we're on the subject, big question: _who the hell_ are _you?_ "

Loki manages to sigh, and looks away, head rolling awkwardly. After a moment, he looks back, meets Tony's eyes again. "I told you," he says reluctantly. "Loki. …Prince of Asgard. Sorcerer and shapeshifter." A cough cuts his words short, and he moves one burnt hand, the ghost of a familiar dismissive gesture. "There are titles. You don't care."

"…okay," Tony says, after what feels like a very long, open-mouthed silence. _Prince?_ Goddammit, he _knew_ Loki was some kind of aristocrat. He'd been right, after all – he really does have Napoleon in exile here!

"I'm gonna deal with that," Tony promises, because he is, at some point. But he can't stand to watch Loki lick his lips and have them come away bloodier even once more. "After I get you some help –"

"Tony, no." Again, Loki tries to reach out and stop him. He still can't, and Tony flinches again at the sight of those ruined hands, but…

They're bad, but they were worse. His upturned left palm was charred _black_ , and now it's only – only! – a dirty, agonized dark reddish-black.

"I'm healing," Loki says, between breaths. "It's just…not quick. I'm drained. I put everything I had…" Another breath, but he's talking. "…into trying to open the Way." Tony can hear the capitals. "But my magic…regenerates. It's…real. It's coming back."

His eyes close for a minute in a long, exhausted blink, and just as Tony was about to say something, he resumes, "I'm not a healer. I can…only fix myself. But I'm a shapeshifter." Somehow, impossibly, the ghost of a smile plays around his bloody lips. "I can put myself back together…in a new form. It's just…another shapeshift."

 _Impossible_ , everything Tony's ever known cries, but _impossible_ truly has never applied to this man. So against his better judgment, even though he should know better, he decides to trust Loki one last time, and looks, trying to get past the horror and calm down enough to evaluate the facts.

Maybe he's imagining it in the bad light, but Loki's hands actually look like hands again, and he's definitely more lucid than he was a few minutes ago. It's hard to tell beneath the alien – literally alien! _oh my god what the fuck_ – armor, but could it be possible, Tony wonders, that the crushed lung that must have been beneath that caved-in side is repairing itself, and taking Loki's ribcage with it?

Tony licks his lips in sympathy, and offers his carefully-considered scientific opinion. "That is the biggest pile of sophist bullshit I've ever heard."

"Hush." Loki coughs exhaustedly. "It works. If I believe it. If I have the power to… So tired…"

The magician – the alien – the prince trails off, eyes closing, and doesn't come back until Tony says, "Loki?"

"No," Loki says, turning away and not opening his eyes; it's a defeated, helpless sound.

Part of Tony wants to coddle him and care for him, put him back together and beg for all the real answers, and he'll believe them this time. He wants to hurt for the broken creature, the lost prince in exile.

The rest, and it's the larger percentage of him, looks at those wounds, and then at the chaos all around them. It takes in the screaming pack of nightmares and flashbacks still hammering at the door to Tony's consciousness, claws screeching down chalkboards as they struggle to get in and pull him down with them, down into the hell that waits there, and they're breaking through. Their weapons are the stench of fire and destruction – Afghanistan. The knowledge, at last, of the deception and manipulation - _Stane_. The danger Loki deliberately put him in, because he needed a sucker with – oh, the _arc reactor_ ; it's always about the technology, isn't it? What Tony can do for people, what he can be used for unwittingly.

All the lies he told, or that he let Tony believe… Loki stood over him and protected him, held him close and calmed him when he panicked at the memory of what was done to him, spoke soft words and soothed him to make Tony _trust_ him, and then took him for all he's worth, and so how the hell is he any better than Stane?

That part looks down at Loki and says _serves you right!_

"Loki," Tony says, voice calm and cold. It's a voice he doesn't use very often, because he's usually playing too hard to need it, but it's the voice of everyone who ever had the authority to set Tony back on his heels.

And miracle upon miracles, Loki looks up at him again, and flinches back from what he sees there.

"You were using me," Tony says, and if it sounds like a condemnation…it is. It is a deep, deep wound, deeper than the ugly void of the reactor casing in his chest, and Loki _knew_ that, and he took one of those wicked knives of his and carved out his own chunk anyway.

Tony is _so fucking done_ with people using him.

There's no defense he can offer, and Loki barely even tries. "Just wanted to go home," he whispers.

Suddenly furious, not wanting to admit how close to the mark that strikes, Tony stands up and looks around, wanting to be anywhere else. The air has cleared further, the heavy clouds of smoke mostly gone, although a grey haze still lies over everything. It looks, truly, like a bomb has gone off in here, with the best of reasons. _I built this for you, I invited you into my life, I never do that, and this, this is what you do with it? This is how you repay me?_

Anger, deep and true and completely justified, seethes like cold venom in his throat; he can feel it tugging at his eyes.

Even if –

Sure, this is his lover lying at his feet; sure, it's hard to look at something this wounded and broken and desperate and not feel anything. Sure, Tony has grown to trust and care for him, and he's lost too many people already, and this time yesterday he would have sworn he'd do anything to not lose Loki too.

But Loki was using him, just like everybody else.

But every moment of it might have all been a lie.

At least when people betray him, they show their true selves, and Tony knows them, then. Stane had turned on him, and Tony had seen the greed and spite and jealousy that drove his treacherous mentor.

Loki had turned on him, and Tony had seen – what?

He keeps remembering that scream of pure despair, and the heartbreak in it, like the end of the world. That had been honest, and that had _hurt_ , and god, was that how much pain Loki was in, all the time? Trying to get home, again and again, and never able to get there?

And what, after all, had Tony been willing to do? What monstrosities had he been willing to commit? How many people had he _killed_ , their blood on his armored hands, _to go home?_

"Answer me one thing," Tony says.

That sound might be a laugh; it might be a cough. Tony's not sure. He doesn't – he _doesn't_ – care. "A question?" Loki asks. "With an honest answer?"

Tony refuses to take the bait, or to remember how much _fun_ they'd had that night. "Just one," he promises, and looks down at him.

"Why the hell am I still alive?"

Loki meets his gaze mutely, mulishly, and says nothing.

"Look at this place," Tony says, waving a hand around. It couldn't have been any more demolished if they'd set about it with a wrecking ball, a couple of bags of AMFO, and a big chunk of C4, and the stargate had torn itself apart like the world's biggest grenade. _Shards in the wall_ , okay, Tony would just like to reiterate that. "Look at you, and you've got super healing powers. I," he says, jabbing a thumb at his chest and the arc reactor for emphasis, "should be dead. I was standing right there. But I'm not. Why, Loki?"

For at least the dozenth time, Loki's tongue comes out, licks at his lips thirstily. But this time, Tony notices, they're not getting any redder. He was bleeding inside, that very real red flag said. And now he's not, or not as much, the worst patched up. But now Tony can see how chalk-pale Loki has gone, and how completely exhausted he is.

Finally, the magician says, "I…put everything I had into breaking through. Opening the Way home. Wasn't enough." He pants for breath, and Tony can hear him slip into delirium. "And too much. Out of balance. I felt it go…No hope. Couldn't stop it. Couldn't hold it. Just…the last drop of my magic left. …I chose."

Tony's hands go cold. "Did you protect me? Is that why I'm still here?"

"Not your fault," Loki says, words scattering. "Lied to you. Didn't want to. It hurt. But…home. Had to. You didn't know. Not your fault. And I could take it. Not you. Not you."

He has his answer.

"You shielded me."

 _That_ was what that was, he realizes. He hadn't imagined it after all, that flash of green light just milliseconds before the blast, as Loki screamed. He should have recognized it as something of Loki's straightaway, the color a dead giveaway. The magician's last wisp of…energy, keeping the blast at bay, warding off the shrapnel and the smoke.

Anger and betrayal and reignited trauma tangle within him, warring with sympathy and affection and the battered but still hopeful belief that they might not be so different after all.

That they might, after all, understand each other.

If only they'd been on an equal footing from the beginning.

If only Loki had _trusted_ him!

Tony turns his back, and he walks away, through the destruction, and the wreckage of the best thing he'd ever built.

And until he's out of earshot, he has to keep his eyes fixed forward and grit his teeth against the almost-inaudible, breathless wail of grief and pain and loss and despair behind him.

* * *

Loki's truly unconscious when he returns a minute or two later, most of that time spent stepping carefully around the debris littering, and in some cases fracturing, the floor. It's a mess, but it's not as bad as Tony thought at first – everything that was going to fall has fallen, and it doesn't seem like the roof is going to cave in entirely.

He's still so broken, and as Tony crouches down beside him, he can only wonder that this is the _improvement_. Loki had been _worse_ , before.

"Loki," he says quietly, and puts his free hand on the magician's chest, over his heart, through that black-and-green leather armor. Ashes and blood stain it, turning gold to shadows.

Loki wakes ashamed and hurting, with nowhere to go as he flinches away on reflex.

 _I wish_ , Tony thinks for what might be the last time, _you trusted me._

"Hi," says Tony. "You idiot."

"Tony?" Loki says, or tries to.

"Shut up," Tony answers, and lifts the mug of water to the magician's parched lips. And he carefully does not notice the sounds Loki makes, which he will never admit might be forced-back tears of pure rage and confusion, as he drinks.

* * *

"Where is it, then?" Loki asks, voice dull and resigned.

A few minutes ago, Tony managed to unearth a pair of oversized couch cushions from the wreckage, punching the worst of the ashes and gravel from them and trying not to imagine a certain alien magician's aloof, knowing smirk on the business end of the blows. From this uneasy seat, Tony has been trying to salvage the broken video camera. Probably because it's the least complicated, it's the least damaged of the scientific equipment he pointed at what turned out to be an impressive but catastrophic experiment. Everything else is in ribbons, but if the tiny memory card hasn't been hit directly, maybe there still exists _some_ record of what happened. No one will believe it, but Tony is determined to try.

The EMP probably ruined anything the shockwave and debris left intact, but working with his hands at least gives him something to do and something else to look at.

Not for the first time, he wishes he'd insisted JARVIS be linked in and monitoring. He can't remember how he'd overlooked Loki commanding the AI into blindness and deafness, or why he'd thought giving Loki those permissions was a good idea in the first place.

"Where's what?" Tony answers, after a nice long wait to show how much he doesn't care.

He still looks over in time to see Loki level the most scathing glare the magician can manage at him. It's a shadow of its proper self, but Tony recognizes it; it's the one that says _don't play stupid, I don't have the time or patience_. "The gun."

The word hits the extended awkward silence like a rock thrown into a cesspool; things are moving, but it's no great improvement.

Tony considers his next words, and decides not to play stupid.

"I thought about it," he says, cold and honest. One of them should probably be. "I wanted to come back here in armor. I imagined it in detail. I could almost hear the repulsors charging, see what you'd look like in the light they'd cast."

Loki sighs like he'd expected nothing else. "So, where?" he asks, matter-of-fact. His eyes move around the room, looking for the hidden weapon.

The tiny screwdriver in Tony's other hand might qualify, going by the way the ridges of the grip bite into his clenched hand. Instead, he says, "One, I don't think you can get up off that floor."

Whatever he is, Loki looks somewhat better. His hands and arms are red and weeping, and his breathing is still erratic and rough, but there's some faint color in his cheeks that isn't splattered blood. As pale as he usually is, Tony wonders if that's a problem, his body swinging too far the other way. He's moved only centimeters, folding his legs into something less crumpled and askew, and he winced as he did it, making Tony wonder if something had been broken in there, too. He's shown no desire – or ability – to go any further.

Tony can't get over that. That's _amazing_. The punishment his body had taken should have killed him, and would have killed anyone else, anyone not – Asgardian. Alien. Other. But instead Loki's awake and talking as his body puts itself back together.

Now _that's_ magic.

"…so it's not like I need a weapon to defend myself," Tony continues his thought. "And two, if you wanted to hurt me, you would have let me burn."

Loki says nothing, keeping his wounded, hostile silence. But Tony refuses to let that glower make him feel like the bad guy, because he's not. He's the one who's been wronged here, which leads him to:

"And three, I didn't want to shoot you by accident or on impulse, because make no mistake, Loki, I am sitting here trying to fix this goddamn camera, but _I am fucking pissed at you!_ " He grits his teeth and drags his words back from the roar they'd become. "Is that clear?"

Apparently not. "So why didn't you?" Loki asks again. It's not an idle question. He's looking straight at Tony, and there's a genuinely – as far as Tony can tell, because oh, Loki's _good;_ he shouldn't assume he can tell truth from lie ever again – puzzled note in his voice.

"Why…" Tony repeats incredulously. "Let me get this straight. Are you seriously asking me why I didn't bring a gun in here and just shoot you?"

"I…" Loki starts, and trails off. "It's your right. I…can't stop you."

 _It's your –_ what the _fuck?_ Tony thinks, and says so. What does Loki think he is, here? A captured prisoner? A condemned criminal? "Loki, I don't know what sort of place you come from, or what sort of fucked-up _right_ you think people have to kill someone who can't fight back, just off-hand because you're mad at them, but we don't do that here."

Loki – the alien – looks at him like he's speaking in tongues, which makes Tony sick. _God_ , does Loki really believe what he just said?

What sort of barbaric hellhole does he come from, where that's a thing that happens?

And he wants to go _back_ there?

Hell, what does that say about _Loki_ , and how he acts when he's not playing at humanity?

Tony's not sure he wants to know.

"Yeah, I kind of want to hit you," he grits out. "Because, as I believe I mentioned, I'm so pissed at you I can't see straight, which explains why this camera is a bigger mess than when I started. But…no. Just…" He can't think of a better word. "No."

Loki turns away, and Tony resists the urge to throw his hands into the air in frustration. Or to throw the screwdriver at the wall.

Actually, he's going to do that.

It doesn't help, except to punctuate the long silence that blooms between them like a corpse flower. The overhead lights have sort of come back on, throwing a sickly, wavering illumination over the destroyed workroom, but it's the sort of light that Tony wants to climb up to and put out of its misery. There are no longer pea-souper fog banks lumbering through the room, but there's a nasty coating of ash and smoke everywhere, and the smell of it is heavy in the air.

The long worktable has been knocked spinning, his proto-rover wrecked. Tony had to climb over it to get out of the door, which the table would block as neatly as any urban-warfare barricade if it hadn't shattered into three misshapen fragments and sundry shards. The bunker's airlock door hangs open like a missing tooth – he never had closed and sealed it, in the end. The whiteboard is more of a blackboard, now, and the shelves look like San Francisco after the 1906 Big One came through, complete with fire damage.

There's something he's forgotten to wonder about – he remembers remembering about it, but he can't remember what it was. He knows he was peeling a strand of Loki's hair out of the clotted blood smeared across the side of his face. He'd been trying to hold the refilled mug so it wouldn't spill all over him, and stomping heavily on the urge to yank cruelly just to express how _mad_ he was, and he'd remembered something.

Never mind. It'll come back to him.

Until then, he asks the question that won't stop stabbing at him. "So was any of it true, then?"

"What?"

Tony glares at Loki's – purposefully? – blank expression. "Anything you told me. Anything you made me guess. You. What you can do. …Us. Any of it. Take your pick."

"It's not my fault you guessed wrongly," Loki says, and the self-righteousness in that has the muscles in Tony's arms screaming with the desire to punch him.

"You sure as hell didn't help," Tony shoots back instead. He'd made logical, reasonable guesses based on the best information he had at hand, and how was he supposed to know that when Loki said _magic_ , he meant it? There's no such thing as –

Well. Fuck.

This is not Tony's day.

Loki says, "You wouldn't have believed me," with so much disgust in his voice Tony's instantly offended, even if all the evidence has proved that true.

"You could have tried," he growls. "So. Was any of it true?"

"Every word," Loki snaps, the haughty arrogance of the untouchable magician and aristocrat back in full force for a moment. "I told you my father was angry with me, and that he'd sent me away, and he _has_." He layers his next words with thick sarcasm. "I failed to mention that he's the god-king and All-Father of a realm beyond your own, and that he banished me to this _world_ , and blinded me to the Ways home."

"Blinded?" Tony seizes on the word of that he understands best and so can disbelieve properly. Loki's eyes are the sharpest he's ever met, and he's intimately aware of his surroundings; even stunned and probably concussed, he'd been tracking Tony's movements with only a moment's delay.

Loki rolls those eyes. "In here," he specifies, lifting one damaged hand towards his forehead. He moves only his upper arm at the shoulder, still hurting.

"With magic," Tony says bluntly, just to make sure they're on the same crazy page here.

"Yes." No smirk, no sidelong glance, no quietly mischievous laugh. "They're…paths between worlds. They're almost impossible to find, without the knack of sensing them. I could search blindly all my days and never find one."

Tony sets the video camera down before he throws it too. He's had no luck recovering the memory card yet, but throwing it won't help. "Can all…your people…do things like that?"

Finally, finally, he's getting answers, but the answers are goddamn weird, and if Tony hadn't seen with his own eyes Loki's hands knitting back together, or that golden alien city a breath and a universe away, or his own safe bubble amidst devastation, he wouldn't believe a word of it.

But at this point, as he stands up and paces back and forth, just a few steps either way in the narrow clear area where he's kicked and shoved as much of the rubble aside as he can, how much more proof can he ask for?

"No," Loki answers, forthcoming for once. "Not many. Not like me." Pride sneaks into his voice. "I honed my skills deliberately, and I'm _very_ good."

"Well, hooray for you."

Loki glares up at him, not happy about their respective positions. "Most Aesir have a low-level ability, just something innate. Our gift for languages, or for healing. And every _einherjar_ – warrior, soldier perhaps, I heard that not translate – must be able to at least summon his armor."

Questions about language get shelved, for now, as Tony's reminded of the alien armor Loki's still wearing. He can't get over how much it _fits_ him and the way he moves, and when he plays back the memories in his head, he can easily imagine Loki's everyday Earth clothes replaced with that black-and-green leather, more lightweight and flexible than the Iron Man suit but no less showy. "Like that," he says unnecessarily, eyes pinned to that golden curve of metal like a sash – no, a torc, he thinks he remembers from long-ago Dungeons and Dragons, that one girl who painted the miniatures and lectured them all on how historically or mythologically accurate her designs were.

"Yes," Loki confirms, just as unnecessarily.

Tony hunkers down, arms braced on his knees, first checking to make sure he's not going to impale himself on a chunk of concrete. It's not as comfortable as it used to be, and he settles for sitting on the floor again. "So, if you're drained of…magic, I can't believe I just said that, and magic summoned that…" A simple diagram springs to mind. "I'm thinking in terms of batteries here, can I do that?"

The magician sighs, nods permission. "If you like."

"Why can't you turn it back into energy, recharge yourself that way? I assume you've still got your everyday clothes on underneath it…"

Loki mutters something that sounds a lot like _these are my everyday clothes._ Aloud, he answers, a bit snappily, "For one thing, it's holding my ribs together."

"Oh."

"I'm built stronger than you," Loki offers, ruefully, "but that just means I have to endure internal injuries for longer. I don't get to die of them."

Tony imagines pieces of ribs tearing loose, floating free like knives – "Ouch."

"I may not be human, but I'm a living creature, Tony," Loki rebukes him. "I need air. At this point, I'd survive ripping my lungs to shreds again, but I wouldn't be happy about it."

 _Again_. Tony remembers his own intermittent struggles to breathe and shudders with complete sympathy. "I can't get over the fact that you're still alive."

"I seem to recall cursing you for being fragile," Loki says, perfectly dryly. "You do seem so, to me."

 _When…_ Right. Tony scrambles back to his feet again and walks away, getting out of range before he can give into the renewed blinding need to punch Loki, very hard. "…Yeah," he says when he's at a safe distance. "I remember that too. You were saving my life, at the time."

He peeks back over his shoulder just in time to see Loki flinch. "Ah." It's very quiet.

 _Don't do it, don't do it, don't go there –_ He can't help it. "And now I know why," Tony growls, swinging around because he's damn well going to say this to Loki's face. "You didn't give a damn about me, did you? You just needed a clever idiot you could bat your eyes at."

" _No_ ," Loki objects.

"Yeah?" He doesn't believe a word of it. "Why me, then? …Sorry, I didn't catch that."

Oh, does he know the snarl on that face, and the faint flush that's choleric anger, not coy embarrassment. "I like you," Loki spits like it's a curse.

Tony very nearly laughs, dismissive and disbelieving. "You sleep with all your marks, then?"

And _that_ gets a reaction. Loki's expression and the rage in his voice make everything else seem like playacting, and for a second, Tony _believes_ that he's the prince he'd called himself. Even crumpled against the shattered wall, he's frightening.

"Trickster I may be," Loki says, low and deadly and furious, every word a promise of retribution, "and liar as I need to, but you will think carefully before you call me a whore again."

Holy _shit_ , the danger in that is…really something. Tony finds his knees replaced with jelly, lava burning through his thighs and creeping upwards, and his mouth dry; surely that's why his lips have parted and his breath is panting through them. He's distantly aware that he's staring, fixated like he's starving; he can hear his pulse roaring through his ears and feel it beating in inappropriate places, and the denim of his pants is suddenly very _present,_ impossible to ignore against his skin.

So that's a problem, then.

"I –" Tony starts, and hears as if through a thick blanket that it's barely even a sound, more of a croak from a parched mouth. He licks his lips to try again, and his mouth floods. On the third try, he manages, "I didn't mean it that way."

Maybe, if he's very lucky, Loki didn't notice; his eyes are fixed on the middle distance like it's offended him. "I didn't expect to care for you," he goes on reluctantly. "I didn't even want to. All I wanted was to go home. I thought…" He huffs, almost in disgust. "I'd keep you interested, make you trust me, so I'd have access to your resources, but you wouldn't insist on looking over my shoulder and asking for explanations. Now do you understand why _I can't_ give them to you?"

"Because it's magic." Tony's just going to go with that, and deal with the cognitive dissonance of that versus the rest of his life…later.

"Yes," Loki sighs. "I understand what I can do, but your words, your rules, the way you think…and I make a poor teacher. Quicker and easier to gain your trust than teach you basic magic, much less what _I_ can do."

"Gee, thanks for sparing me that," Tony's mouth says on autopilot. "So everything you've built in Vegas –"

That's a very bitter smile. "Props. Distractions. That…projector I let you see. It's a silver disc, about…" He holds a hand up, fingers crooked, palm towards Tony. The flesh there is burned still, but no more than a bad sunburn, reddened and sore-looking. "Thus."

Tony remembers that, and how much he'd wanted one. Remembers a shadow in an alley, recreated across from a barstool. Remembers sudden rapids, in a river that went nowhere. "Sure."

"Fake. Just something for you to look at, or something to set the spell into, for others to use. I don't need it. It's all here." This time, when Loki raises a hand, his fingers move freely, tapping lightly against a point above and between his eyes. "I like to be able to move my hands when I work, but I don't even need that. I can be bound and blindfolded, and I can still create illusions such as the ones you saw."

The simple genius in that staggers Tony, when he runs it through the steps. "Real magic. Masquerading as fake magic. Presented as real magic. Goddammit. Perfect alibi, coming and going. You were _made_ for Vegas, weren't you?"

Loki snorts. "Don't think I don't see the irony. On Asgard, what I do is not…acceptable." He snaps his words off, shakes his head briefly, and shrugs one-handed. "No…proper. That's the closer term. Where I come from, we're…a warrior kingdom. Skill at arms is valued far more than skill at a craft, and magic on the level I work at, capable of sending those warriors chasing their tails and jumping at shadows, as you say here, is…cheating."

"Sounds like the smart way of doing things, from where I'm standing." He's not actually standing, he's sitting on one of the grimy cushions again, but Tony's pretty sure Loki gets the idea.

The put-upon look he gets in return is something he might have seen any ordinary day, when everything was easy and false between them. "You mean thinking one's way out of a problem, rather than fighting, resorting to force of arms? Unheard of. How are warriors to test their strength, when someone can snap his fingers and change the landscape of the battle entirely?"

"That's bullshit," Tony blurts without thinking.

The magician turns his hands up in a shrug. "Don't scold me for that small deception, Tony. To have my work appreciated so…" He sighs. "I show off, perchance, but you'd do no different."

This is completely true, and Loki knows it perfectly well. But Tony stumbles over a dark spot that plunges straight down into the hurt and betrayal still churning in his heart, throwing out more claws to catch in his flesh with every reluctant confession. "And yet you still want to be anywhere else."

"No," Loki contradicts, immediately and firmly. "Asgard is _home_. It's…" He looks away, hiding the emotion Tony saw flicker across his eyes, before getting himself under control again and meeting Tony's gaze again. "It's mine, someday, if I can take it. If I can prove to my father that I'm the one who deserves it."

And that's…

Tony doesn't even know what to do with that.

Those two sentences are too big for this room.

 _God_ , he's in the middle of a battle for an alien throne. "You said _prince_ ," Tony checks, just in case he'd misunderstood.

"Yes," Loki answers, pride and confidence burning like a lantern in his eyes.

"Slumming around on Earth," he double-checks. "In Las Vegas."

That lantern turns into a blowtorch, hissing low but ready to flare up. "I'm _stuck_ ," snarls Loki. "I didn't choose to be here, I'm just trying to get home."

All the pretty distractions, the magic and the exiled alien royalty and the healing powers, vanish like they never existed, and the dam they formed between Tony and the churning dark floodwaters of betrayal bursts. The rage and hurt sweep out into his throat and the backs of his eyes, pressure building to a breaking point. But Tony rides it, knuckles white and familiar old bruises aching; at least if he has to do this again, he knows what he's doing.

It doesn't have to surprise him, this time, with how much it hurts. He can grit his teeth and swallow down his pain and narrow his focus to watching Loki get to his feet at last. He can stare with a mixture of fascinated horror and amazed disbelief, as someone who looked on the edge of death braces himself against a boulder-sized chunk of ceiling concrete with hands that were blackened to charcoal, fortifying himself with a deep breath that moves a chest that had been caved in on itself, not long ago. The magician puts his weight on his left leg cautiously, testing it, and Tony watches as he shifts to place his confidence in it again, falling back into that arrogant stance that so _fits_ that archaic armor.

Tony lets Loki check the movement of his hands, and place one of them over his healed side, and even slick his long hair back out of his face, before slamming home the knife that Loki had so readily placed in his arsenal.

"By using me," Tony says.

And oh, there he is. There's the man Tony wants to punch well and good, and maybe do other things to, as Loki narrows his eyes imperiously, and raises his chin to make such a tempting target, and lashes out.

"And what else was I supposed to do?" he demands. "Give up? Live out all my days – and oh, Tony, that is a _very_ long time – pining for home and letting my ignorant oaf of a brother burn the Nine Realms to ashes while I played at entertaining children?" He snaps a hand away dismissively, preemptively. "Don't you stand there and curse me. You would have done the same, to return to your home and set things right. You _did._ "

"Oh, that's a cheap shot," Tony growls, rising to his feet as his hands ball into fists. _Fight me, you lying bastard._

Loki sneers at him. "And true."

Tony warns, "Don't you dare. Don't you _dare_ go there." _I've trodden that ground already and seen my own share of ashes there, I don't need you digging it up too –_

"Oh, are there rules now?" Loki places a hand on his golden breastplate in a parody of surprise and concern, voice fluting high like a scandalized country spinster. Dammit, Tony had known explaining the Masterpiece Theatre joke was a bad idea.

He drops back into his own register and mien immediately, teeth baring in a snarl as he closes in on Tony, who holds his ground. "I'm trying to keep my realm from the destruction that waits for it at my brother's hands, and I'm trapped here in exile on this backwater world overfull of mortals, and I don't have the time or the luxury to follow your code!" He's shouting, now, accented voice carrying. "I _have_ to return home, Tony!"

Loki's standing over him, and if there's anything left of the injuries he was sporting, he's hiding it well. Tony doesn't give a damn how much taller he is; he stares right back and demands, "Well, if you needed my help so badly, didn't it ever occur to you just to _ask?_ "

He'd meant it sarcastically. He never expected Loki to stop short, the mouth that had already been curved around a retort going slack and baffled as the magician blinks.

"What the – oh, you're kidding me! It didn't! You seriously never even –"

"You wouldn't have believed me," Loki says hurriedly, visibly on the defensive as he steps backwards. Just once, but it means Tony can think a little more clearly.

So…it's very hard to think with Loki that close and that…assertive.

"And that stopped you from even trying?" Tony counters.

He's expecting a quick comeback, but instead he gets hesitation. "…people don't," Loki says finally, after chewing on his lower lip for a moment, which yes, Tony watched.

"Don't what? Believe stories like this? Hell, I wouldn't believe it if I hadn't seen you put yourself back together again. My _god,_ you were all but dead. Don't…ever do that to me again, understood? But you're smart, and creative, and hell, you're _magic_ , you're telling me there was nothing you could do to convince me?"

"Don't _help!_ " Loki shouts back at him.

Tony opens his mouth. Closes it again. Decides on, "What?"

"– just for the asking," Loki snarls, waving a hand that ends up dragged through his hair, hanging onto it like it's going to fly away, or like he expects Tony to throw something at his head. "People. Don't."

For a moment, Tony genuinely can't speak, can't parse the depth of mistrust and loneliness that betrays. _Loki doesn't have friends_ , he was told that from the beginning, but… Is there no one, even back on his own world? No one he can rely on to be on his side every time? No one ever?

Given the available options, Tony possibly goes with the wrong one.

"What. The. Fuck," he forces through the knot in his throat. "Loki, what kind of bastards _are_ these people of yours? Hell, what do you think _I_ am?"

Loki hisses through his teeth, eyes flashing, and Tony remembers too late that Loki is a prince who dreams of ruling his own kingdom, one that he's hinted places great value on a sense of honor, and that Tony has just insulted everything Loki treasures.

"Starry-eyed and hungry," Loki spits at him, and his mouth twists sardonically, mocking. "And manipulatable."

Tony throws the punch before he knows what he's doing, right fist clenched and snapping out in a perfect boxing hook. Habits he's learned in the ring with Happy, that had sunk in after all, shift his weight from his back foot to his leading one smoothly, his center of mass moving with the punch and his stance stable despite the gravel beneath him. Everything he's pressed down into his chest so he can talk – okay, shout – past it comes coiling out through his shoulder and elbow like a spring, bracing his wrist and gladly trading the way his stubby fingernails nip at his palm for the pure satisfaction of wiping that spiteful look off Loki's face. He hears himself shouting, something incoherent and wordless and only _furious_ , as his fist swings through a clean arc –

And stops short, all that momentum arrested as Loki catches his wrist.

The force of it echoes back through Tony's arm, and somehow _he's_ the one to stumble, or try to. He's going nowhere, caught by his own blow. Loki doesn't move at all, his raised hand as immobile as a statue's and clenched as tightly as a vise.

He doesn't have the time to think much more than _oh right fuck me Loki's stronger than he looks_ before the magician goes on the attack, face cruel with anger, crowding into Tony's space and not letting him move away.

And even if Tony had anywhere to go, even if he thought he could back up blindly without falling over some chunk of broken stone or scrap metal or fallen piece of furniture, he's held rapt by the savage, aggressive, _real_ danger in Loki's presence. They're breathing into each other's faces, Tony's throat bared vulnerably as he glares into Loki's eyes, and Tony can smell him, that indefinable dark scent he knows so well and could never name, tinged now with smoke and blood and something richer than ozone. Hell, is that _magic_ crackling from him, making all the fine hairs across Tony's skin stand on end in response, or is that just arousal shading from anger and – no, not fear, still somehow only awe, not fear – into something much less appropriate?

"So _don't you stand there_ and curse me as a liar," Loki growls, the pitch of his voice dropping into something harsh and commanding, "because _I didn't_. Everything I told you was true. Every word. I told you I was from another world, again and again, and you laughed at me. I told you my magic was real, and you didn't believe me. You knew that what I could do was beyond this world, I showed you, and you closed your eyes to it, refusing to even suspect. And who are you to judge me?"

Some withered-dry, sensible part of Tony's brain gets control of his legs, ignoring the screaming tide that's shorting out the rest of his neurons, and he tries to back away, tugging at his imprisoned hand. But Loki only grips it tighter, a sharp squeeze commanding _stop that_ , and follows him step for clumsy step.

"You _dare_ ," he hisses. " _You,_ and you're _nothing,_ just another mortal _._ I'm a prince of the Aesir, of Asgard, as your world is Midgard to us; we fought wars among the stars while your people were still dragging themselves out of the mud and blinking at the lights of our battles in the skies, weeping in confusion and burning your toys to appease us, like we even noticed your crawling little race! We are _gods_ beside you, and it's not my fault you didn't believe me!"

The arrogance takes Tony's breath away, but it was gone already, so he gets his lungs working again on both counts and wishes more blood was going up to his brain. "Bullshit," he challenges. "Bullshit, and you know it! Call it what you need to, whatever lets you feel better, but you lied to me. _You lied!"_

He knows it's a futile gesture, but he raises his free hand and jabs Loki's chest with it, literally making his point and not caring about the armor in the way. "I trusted you," he curses, "and _you're no better_ than everyone else just using me! Fuck you, I've had enough of that! You're a prettier face and a prettier story, but you're Stane all over again –"

Broken against a concrete wall, hands burnt black, bleeding inside, and Loki hadn't made any cry of pain louder than a whimper, but now he howls like Tony had shot him after all.

"Don't you _dare_ compare me to that _creature!_ I wanted to kill him for what he did to you, and I would have," Loki vows, eyes blazing, teeth bared. "I would have hunted him down and torn him apart for hurting you; you cannot _imagine_ how much I hated him that night!"

There's an animalistic, berserker fury on his face, and it would be terrifying if it was aimed at Tony, but instead it's _for_ him, and that's…weird, but not weird enough for Tony to take it back.

Not that Loki's giving him the chance. "I'm _nothing_ like him," he insists, hand tightening on Tony's wrist again. "You're not even scratched, I defended you before myself and I never wanted you hurt –"

"Hurt?" Tony rages at him, snatching that word from his lips and hurling it back at him; let him choke on it. "Let's talk about hurt, then, you sanctimonious – oh," he realizes, shaking his head once in a sharp snap, " _Silvertongue._ I really should have known, shouldn't I? You all but _told_ me –"

" _I did tell –"_

"You want to talk about hurt?" Tony talks right over Loki's yowled protest, free hand darting up to grab at the collar of his surcoat and reel him in closer. "You would have waltzed off through that magic portal and run home without so much as a goodbye or an explanation," he accuses, voice darkening into a snarl of his own as his treacherous, lying magician blinks, just a flicker of eyelashes and a moment of doubt.

He can taste the poison and the hurt in his mouth as he spits, " _You were going to leave me!_ You made me fall in – made me fall for you, and you would have just run off home to your fairyland and left me here!"

 _You were going to just abandon me, after everything,_ inflates in his throat and chokes him, and it's not even slightly satisfying that Loki's vise grip loosens from where Tony can feel his own racing pulse against the palm of that beautiful, clever hand.

That, it seems, hits home. "I would…" That's a crack in Loki's armor worth the ragged strips of his sleeves still gaping around his forearms, and Tony takes aim at it again as he defends, "I would have come back. I would have returned to see you again, to –"

"Oh, like hell you would have!" Tony counters, seriously considering kicking the taller man in the shins. He doesn't, because exactly one of them is in armor, and he's shaking so hard with rage it might be only Loki's hand on his wrist that's keeping him from tripping. Instinctive steps move him backwards blindly, even if he's being held up like a rag doll.

" _Now_ you're lying to me," he shouts, "and now I know when you're doing it, because _your lips are moving!_ No, you wouldn't have!"

He draws in a breath, and goes in for the kill. "You don't care! You have _never_ cared –"

Loki's other hand slams against the wall behind him, and Tony realizes only as he startles backwards and his head knocks against it that in their struggling, screaming argument, he's been cornered.

Tony hears something crack, and not a flicker of discomfort or even surprise crosses Loki's face – fuck, had that been the _wall,_ breaking under that blow? He'd always wondered what Loki was capable of, if he actually used the strength he hid so carefully, and now Tony's breaths are coming short and fast, almost panting in that sliver of air they're sharing.

The magician looms over him, lowering his face to Tony's and snarling, eyes wild. Loki's penning him in bodily, pinning Tony there and using his height and weight to his advantage, and the sensible part of Tony's brain tries to dig his shoulder blades into the wall like shovels, needing to retreat before this gorgeous, furious creature gets any closer and finds out exactly what his proximity is doing to Tony.

The rest howls with stupid animal rage and lust, tangled together inextricably, and only by a very great effort of will does Tony stop himself from lunging at Loki right here and now and _damn_ the consequences and his very real grudge.

The hand braced against the wall next to Tony's head is white-knuckled with force and rage as Loki bares his teeth and commands:

" _Take. That. Back."_

But the Incredible Brain has been overruling Tony's body for a very long time now, and Tony rallies and shouts back, " _You set me up!"_ from the no distance at all of that breath between them.

"And you knew you were doing it, every step of the way! And how _dare you_ ," he spits Loki's challenge back in his face, "stand there and say you never meant me to get hurt, because _you knew I would be!_ How long have you been laughing at me behind my back, Loki?"

Loki pulls back a little, shifting his center of gravity more onto his feet and less onto his hand, and Tony tries not to whimper in disappointment as Loki makes a noise disturbingly like _tch._

" _How long?_ " Tony roars at him instead.

"I _never –_ " Loki denies.

"Liar. Liar! You made me believe," Tony rages at him, beyond caring that he's still pinned to this wall with something looming over him that could tear out his throat or smash him to the ground or fuck him bloody – any would do, at this point. "You made me trust you, and you've been leading me here since the moment we met, and you didn't give a _damn_ what happened to me, you selfish, vicious bastard!"

Something flares in Loki's eyes. _"Vicious?"_ he repeats, and he smiles with no amusement in it whatsoever, savage and predatory. Tony's mouth goes desert-dry as he suddenly becomes very _aware_ of how close Loki is, how strong he is by comparison, how vulnerable Tony's position really is. The broken man is gone, and now it's Tony who's unquestionably in Loki's power; the magician could do _anything_ to him, and Tony couldn't stop him.

He knew Loki was something dangerous, something _other_ , and still, he'd left his armor behind in the other workroom, and the weapons that might have given him a prayer of stopping Loki from doing whatever the hell he wants to, and he'd come back here anyway.

Loki _knows_ him, and he'd know how to make it hurt, but he'd know how to make it _good_ , too, and even that choice is not in Tony's trapped hand. The edges of his vision close in greedily, narrowing in on the man setting all his nerve endings aflame, fight/flight/fuck/fury reflexes screaming in confusion and overstimulation. There's not enough air in the world to let him get a breath that isn't smoky in new and better ways, heated and hungry and fierce.

"You hypocrite!" Loki sneers, mocking and bitter and razor-edged. "You knew I was dangerous! You knew I wasn't what I seemed! And _you like it –"_

The sound Tony makes isn't even a word; it's a strangled sound of rejection and aggression and defiance.

And utterly unconvincing, and Tony knows it even as it leaves his throat, and Loki knows it just as well. "Oh, now who's the liar?" Loki smirks. "I can _smell_ it on you, pet. I've tasted it off your skin, I know the sounds you make when you're so far over the edge you know you'll never stop falling, and I'd keep you there forever if I could, and you'd let me, you'd _beg_ me to –"

Some part of Tony's mind is distantly aware that his remaining hand is braced against the wall, fingers scrabbling but he has no idea for what. Maybe just a handhold to keep him from drowning under the blinding rush of pure adrenaline, a high just begging for him to overdose on. Instead, Tony balls it into a fist again and throws another punch at those wicked, ravenous eyes.

It's a rickety, clumsy blow, and Loki bats it aside like a fly, not even missing a beat.

"And while you're busy blaming me, _pet,_ why don't you just admit that I didn't have to do anything? You came after _me_ , and _every time_ you couldn't figure me out, you just got more and more intrigued."

True, true, hatefully true, and Tony hates himself and his magician both for it.

" _I never meant to hurt you,_ " Loki insists, low and dangerous, "but don't think I've ruled it out if I need to."

And that's very near a threat, Tony realizes even through the roar of his churning pulse beating in his ears and pooling lower, but he physically cannot care.

"You manipulative _bastard –_ "

Loki sneers. "Like you weren't willing."

"You should have _told_ me –"

" _I did._ "

"That's the most self-serving, arrogant crap I've ever heard, _Silvertongue!_ "

"I _told_ you not to trust me!"

"You made me –"

"I never, all I did was give you the chance and you leapt at it –"

"I'm gonna knock you back on your ass so hard you'll wish you'd never gotten back up –" Tony vows, and tries to struggle away, but in trying to wrench his trapped hand free, he only succeeds in pulling their bodies together.

And maybe Loki steps into it, maybe Loki _lets_ him do it, but Tony doesn't care, because the movement jams his hips up against Loki's and the friction that sends white sparks across his vision and fire into his lungs is _the best thing ever_.

Okay, so he's not the only one turned on by this fight, and Loki growls and pushes Tony back. But it's vicious desire in his voice, not rage, and he grinds their bodies together even as Tony tries to hit him.

Whatever fight they're having, it's not about the lies anymore, and somewhere they've probably gotten some wires crossed, but Tony doesn't care. Can't care, there's not enough of him left to care, not with his cock hard enough to _hurt_ , and his treacherous, powerful lover rutting against him, snarling. Tony gets his hands all over that and tries to throw him off, but he doesn't manage to do anything but writhe desperately, trying to touch Loki everywhere at once with every centimeter of his own body.

At least whatever wires they've got crossed, they're on the same wavelength about this.

One of Loki's hands positively _tears_ down his chest in a long curve, near-painful and punishing, and Tony cries out and gasps into it, sounds he doesn't consciously know how to make spilling from his open mouth. God, he needs – he _needs_ – something, anything, he needs to _hurt_ this man and he needs what they're doing to never stop.

It's not even thought that has him clawing at that elegant armor, wanting more than anything to get it back off him, see for himself that pale skin is still intact, because Tony's going to _wreck_ it all over again, bruise him and bloody him and then lick him clean all over until he's ruined – serve him _right!_ And it's maddening that he can't get to it, but there's that open throat –

"Tell me to stop," Loki pants into his ear, shoving himself just the slightest distance back on the arm braced over Tony's head, and Tony whines with the deprivation. "Push me away and tell me you hate me, or by night and the Void I will bed you here among the ruins –"

Tony thinks about this for exactly no seconds flat before he kisses Loki _hard_ , hard enough to hurt, biting at the lips that don't open quickly enough to admit him, and wraps his hands around that pale throat only for the leverage he needs to jam his hips up against Loki's, needy and desperate and unashamed.

He feels more than hears something tear as Loki's hands wrench at his clothes, forcing themselves between fabric and skin, and Tony says, " _Fuck,_ " against his mouth like it's a prayer rather than a curse or, y'know, a demand. "Oh, c'mon, Loki, please, that's not fair –"

" _I don't play fair,_ " Loki growls, and kisses him to make him shut up, knocking his head back against the wall hard enough for stars to swim across Tony's vision, or maybe that's the oxygen deprivation from never, ever wanting to _stop_ kissing him…

"Fuck that," Tony manages, as he jerks into the hand curving around and beneath his ass, "you _want_ that armor off, lover, do you want me to spell out all the ways you want that, or you want me to show – _fuck!_ "

Loki gasps, "Planning on it," and laughs wickedly as Tony whimpers.

And _stares_ , because the black-and-green leather dissolves beneath his questing, groping hands, fading back into nothingness and leaving the magician back in the slim tunic and dark jeans he'd been wearing before everything got crazy.

Tony doesn't even bother with a smart comment, not that he can think of one right now. He's too busy trying to pull that tunic off his lover, and getting nowhere, because how is he supposed to do anything with a slim hand cupping him, stroking and caressing, and a strong arm wrapped around his back, holding him in place and holding him _up_? He doesn't remember putting his arms around Loki's shoulders, nor his lover picking him up bodily, crushing them together.

"I always wondered if – ah! – you could do that," he manages, congratulating himself for remembering this fact even with Loki outright biting his throat as if trying to devour him. "Put me down, I want you naked, I want to _see –_ "

"You want, you want," Loki mocks him, crooking his fingers; Tony fixes on the way those green eyes blow black as everything else goes away.

And yeah, he'd rather be doing this somewhere a whole lot more comfortable than the ruins Loki had named them, but to hell with that, he wants to do it, they both do. He wants to fill his hands with heated flesh and unbroken skin, and taste it too, wants to watch Loki throw his head back and bite back a scream as he comes under Tony's hands, and getting there _now_ is more important than anything.

It's rough and rushed, crude and shameless, beyond anything acceptable and sensible and rational, and the best thing about it –

– as Tony cries out and feels his hips jerk uncontrollably, and he gasps out, "'m not gonna _last_ , Loki –", and Loki kisses him fiercely and answers him, "Then don't, I'm not done with you" –

– as he fists a hand in long black hair and buries his face in a bare and unmarked shoulder, tasting his lover's sweat on his tongue –

– as he feels more than sees Loki move a hand to his own cock, and tries to peel his eyes open to watch that even as he chases his own climax –

– as Loki sinks his fingers into Tony's back like claws, and Tony cries out –

– as that tiny, meaningless stimulus tips him over the edge and the chaos burning up his body goes into overload –

– is that it's _true_.

* * *

The salvaged couch cushions make a terrible bed, but they're better than the rubble-strewn, grimy workshop floor, and it's not like Tony's planning on sleeping there. Not for more than a few minutes while his eyes drift closed, feeling sweat and come cooling on his bare skin but warmed by the body wrapped around his.

He suspects he's being held more like a teddy bear than a lover, but shut up, brain, this is really nice.

Drowsily, he trails a hand across his lover's side, fascinated by the way Loki's skin is unmarked by more than temporary, fading bruises and the few old scars. He still can't believe Loki's not human – except for that exceptional strength, everything else is the same. Tony would have _noticed,_ otherwise, with the time and effort he's put into learning every hot spot and pressure point and tangle of nerves that make his lover gasp and moan.

Their two species must be related somewhere, surely… A question for another time, perhaps, and Tony can't help but speak the words that sum it all up.

"Holy shit," he says, more a prayer than a curse, an exclamation of pure wonder, "you're really for real."

Loki sighs into his hair before releasing Tony just enough so the magician can glare at him, halfhearted and amused. "For the last time, Tony – yes. Will you at _last_ believe me?"

Mischief of Tony's own tweaks at the back of his mind like someone pinching his ass. "Prove it," he blurts, grinning.

For that, he gets the _flattest_ look he's ever seen on anyone's face, and Loki makes it an art form. "You're joking."

He is, almost, but he can't stop, riding a wave of endorphins like a tsunami that should have drowned him. Instead he's laughing with pure joy at this incredible, impossible twist his life has just taken, and as he sits up, he might be underground and naked, filthy and sticky, but he's on top of the world.

"Show me something," he insists. "Something that couldn't be faked."

Loki props himself up on one elbow, his mouth twisting in exasperation. "That I'm alive proved nothing? My armor? The gateway to another world, before your eyes? None of these things convinced you?"

 _Oh, no, I believe you. Dear_ god, _I believe you, but that's not why I'm asking_ , Tony doesn't say. Instead, he counters with, "Most of the gateway was science. I think. Could have been the technology. So you're an alien – a smokin' _hot_ one, but you knew that – okay, fine, it's a big universe, had to be other life out there somewhere, but magic? C'mon. _Show me._ "

But maybe Loki hears what he's not saying – _impress me, amaze me, make me gasp and say "Wow!"_ – because he grins back, just a shade of the Real Smile, and says, "You are never going to let this be, are you, pet?"

" _Fuck_ no. Ever. Never, ever. Right here, right now, we are starting over. I want everything, Loki, everything you possibly have to show me, or to do to me, or with me, whichever: bring it on." He gives in to temptation and runs his fingers through a strand of Loki's hair, then leans down to kiss him. "Whatever you can do, show me. I want to know."

Loki pushes into the kiss and savors it, and Tony feels himself stir with interest anew. But he won't let himself be so easily distracted, however incredible it might feel. Might _be_.

"You ask for something real from an illusionist," Loki murmurs against his lips. He opens his eyes, and they're very bright, shining with laughter. "But of _course_ you do, because that is who you are. Well…"

He nudges Tony away just enough to push himself up and stretch, balancing on the edge of the much-abused cushion like it's nothing, as unselfconscious as ever. Tony watches hungrily, eyes racing down the long lines of him and the way his muscles shift under his skin as Loki combs his hair back and rolls his shoulders out.

"Watch, then," Loki says, glancing sideways at him, and Tony's breath catches, because that look says there's a best joke in the world and he's not – yet – in on it. "Were you listening, pet? Did you hear the titles I gave myself?"

Of course he had been. "Prince of Asgard, you said," Tony repeats, and hears himself say it, and absorbs the fact that _that's something he just said_.

"And?"

"Sorcerer and…" He trails off.

Loki smirks, and finishes, "Shapeshifter."

And before his eyes, the man at his side _blurs_ somehow, like Tony's eyes have momentarily slid out of focus, all the details obscured for a brief and crucial moment, but just here. Just Loki. Nothing else.

And then Loki comes clear again, but he's –

– _she's –_

Tony's brain stops cold, and he can only stare.

She looks much the same; Tony would have thought she was Loki's twin sister, if he'd seen her on the street, and she would have stopped him in his tracks, unable even to chase her down and ask for her number.

She's got the same razor cheekbones that any model would kill for, and the same coloration. Her hair is still long and jet-black, with only the slightest suggestion of curls; it's maybe slightly longer, but then it's still tousled from Tony running his fingers through it, so he can't swear to it. Besides, his brain is not up to precise measurements right now.

She's a few centimeters shorter than _he_ was, which Tony only knows because those wickedly sharp and smirking green eyes are a little lower than they were. And wonder of wonders, there's a _my eyes are down here_ joke to be made, if only he could remember how that went.

She's elegant, rather than curvaceous; no Wagnerian Valkyrie, she. Tight and compact bare breasts _beg_ to be touched and enveloped in a single hand, and a flat stomach leads Tony's staring eyes down to narrow but feminine hips, with that lovely curve, and a trail of down tempting him lower.

"You wanted something you could touch, I believe?" she says, and _hell_ , that's Loki's smirk to the life, just on fuller lips and backed up by that same accent. Her voice is just a few notes higher, settling in what Tony thinks of as a low and pleasant alto.

" _Oh my god,_ " Tony blurts, for lack of anything better, and she laughs.

"So I am," she asserts.

 _Impossible, impossible –_

He raises a hand, and hesitates. "Can I?" is all he can manage.

She winds her fingers around his wrist, just where he'd gripped Tony earlier, and places that hand on one warm breast. "I want you to."

Real flesh is solid and inviting beneath his touch, perfect in every detail as her nipple peaks and hardens against his palm, and her eyes flicker closed in a shudder of pleasure.

" _Loki?_ " Tony whispers, wanting to believe.

"Mm-hmm," she hums, ducking her head and kissing his unprotesting mouth. "This is me too," she tells him, low and intense. "No matter what, I'm always me. And I'm not nice, Tony, and I'm not gentle, and I don't play fair."

Tony runs a hand up her thigh, feeling the strength there – stronger than him, _oh god,_ he's had this dream, and he'd woken up panting and rutting into the mattress, with nothing to do but keep going. "This is very unfair."

Loki – and she is, _she is!_ – laughs. "Now we understand one another, then." She gasps when Tony slides a finger between her folds, tentatively and then with more confidence, unable to resist that new-familiar heat. "Oh, I don't get to do this often, but I _enjoy_ it –"

She shifts to give him a better angle, and Tony has no will to protest when that comes in the form of pinning him down and straddling him – Loki's _still_ taller and stronger, wouldn't he just know it.

The filthy cushions are rough beneath his shoulders and back, but Tony wouldn't trade here and now for this world or Loki's own golden one. "I really, really, _really_ like your magic," he kisses onto the peaks of, and then into the hollow between, her breasts.

He feels _very_ clearly the way she convulses at that, heat fluttering around his fingers – okay, that's a thing, that's a thing they're doing – as Loki bites into her lip, that familiar expression, and murmurs, "Shut up, shut up, I want to make you _scream –_ "

And hell yeah, Tony wants her to try it, right after –

"Hey, I remembered a thing," he says, because he's an idiot.

She stares at him like she _knows_ he's an idiot, which, y'know, she does, because this is Loki. "What?"

"No, never mind, don't stop – any second now someone's going to come check on us, I can't figure out why no one's heard all the explosions and come looking for us before now, and _I want_ you like this, Loki, so forget about it –"

"Oh," Loki says, rolling her eyes and smirking, "don't worry about that. You sent them away for the night."

And despite his own words of a moment ago, Tony stares at her blankly, train of…not thought…momentarily derailed. "I did not."

She shrugs, which is _gorgeous_ , especially because with her hands occupied, she has to resort to the everyday bouncing shoulders. "Well, they think it was you, anyway."

"What," Tony says, just that, because, see also: _idiot._

And yep, that's Loki's sarcastic glare, all right. "Liar," she reiterates. "Trickster. Illusionist. _Shapeshifter._ Remember that first morning we spoke? I told you I'd make a better you than you, if I tried."

He…kind of does remember that. "So you –" _impersonated me?_ he doesn't get to say, because Loki lays two fingers across his lips, silencing him.

"No," she says. "I take that back. I might make _as good_ a you as you, perhaps. I could not ask for better."

At which point there's nothing left for Tony to do but kiss her, and work her open first gently, then roughly, until she can impale herself on him and fuck them both into climax, and it's _glorious_.

It's magic.

And it's true.

On second thought, this is _definitely_ Tony's day.

* * *

"Wait," says Tony, sometime later. "Did we just ding-dong-ditch an interdimensional empire?"

And Loki, sprawled across his chest like she never wants to let him go, mouth pressed to his cheek in the ghost of a kiss – Loki laughs, freely and openly, that wicked, _wicked_ laugh.

"Well," she says, voice rich with satisfaction –

" _Now_ we're in trouble."

* * *

 _To be continued._

 _End of Act III_


	12. The Gauntlet

ON WITH THE SHOW!

 **Chapter Twelve: The Gauntlet**

 _That's the quickest to the banner they've ever been –_ is Loki's first coherent thought the next morning, or sometime the next day, at the least. The light from outside is overcast, grey and timeless, when he manages to open an eye to look.

He closes it again immediately, wincing into a familiar-smelling pillow, not one of his, but close enough. Thor has managed to track him down already (impressive) and smacked him over the head with Mjolnir (annoying) while he was asleep (fair ammunition for _centuries_ , that is, who's the one always bragging about the many honorable battles he's gotten himself into and accusing his younger brother of being a sneak?)

Loki mutters curses into the pillow, catching himself just in time before any of them catch fire from the sparks of magic just barely in reach. Not worth it. Not the fire, for this is a luxurious bed and one he's quite fond of, and not the magic, new and straggling and feeble, not ready to be used again.

He recognizes this feeling, and hates it. This is what it feels like to use more magic than he can control, scraping his soul raw for power, snatching at every drop the moment it wells to the surface and digging deeper for the wellspring of it.

For a time, he'd recovered, a second wind to stay him through whatever battle he'd been caught within. But this is the pit beyond that borrowed strength. A headache that could split worlds cracks through his skull, and even knowing that he _cannot_ feel this orb-world spinning in its circles, everything is turning beneath him.

Taking a deep breath, Loki focuses on the scent of the pillow and the sensations of smooth cloth rather than sleek furs. He knows where he is. He's at Tony's house on the ocean, in his lover's bed where they've slept entwined and wrung gasps and screams from each other so often. He knows what's hidden in the drawers scattered around the room, and the simple steps of their ongoing quarrel about the shower settings. He's stood at the window and watched the waves roll under the broken face of this world's moon while Tony sleeps, and made his way unerringly back to join him.

What he barely knows is how this could be _all right_.

His long-held illusion is broken, and Tony knows who and what Loki is, now. Tony, cleverest of mortals, who he'd lied to and deceived and used. Tony, bright warrior, who'd trusted him.

Tony, who'd chewed him out as sharply as anyone ever has, and stillkissed him like he was needed, and who'd _seen_ him for what he is: trickster and shapeshifter, warrior and illusionist, man and woman. Liar and manipulator, wielding the truth like a needle.

And who'd wanted to see.

And who'd wanted him.

It's incomprehensible, beyond his imagination on his best day, much less this one. Puzzling over the paradox only strikes another blow against his ringing thoughts. Perhaps Loki will stay here, not hiding, because that would be foolish, but not thinking, either. And not coming out until his skull has come back together and his body is no longer trying to fall from an edge that isn't there.

"Hey," a familiar voice says. "I think you're finally awake."

The mattress dips beside him, and Tony runs a hand through his hair and down his bare back. Loki manages not to pull away from it: he should enjoy the sensation, but for the first time in years, he feels exposed. Not because of any state of undress – Loki is of Asgard, and Asgardians are not raised to worry about such things – but because Tony is behind him, knows who he is, and should be very angry with him.

But it is all right, Loki tells himself, and remembers his lover nestled against him trustingly, the cool taste of water on his lips, the wonder in Tony's eyes as he'd stroked a hand down her body. And afterwards, they'd emerged from beneath the earth like survivors, reluctant to let go of each other for more than a breath. They'd struggled through basic desires like food – fuel Loki had desperately needed – and the need to be clean, and if other desires had been satisfied, in the process, her lover's hands light and tormenting across her breasts and his mouth hot between her legs, then so be it and welcome.

Tony isn't going to hurt him.

Trust is against his nature, but Loki trusts this man.

"I'm awake," he answers, when he suspects Tony is waiting for a reply. "My magic is…" He fumbles for a Midgardian word, and comes up with possibly the wrong one. "…rebooting. I'm dizzy; my head hurts. It's a form of backlash, or aftershocks; everything has consequences. It stops me from drawing on it further," _before I kill myself trying_ , Loki doesn't say; it's possible, but Tony doesn't need to hear that, "while it comes back."

Tony laughs, but while there's a bit of spiteful glee that would not have sounded unfamiliar in Loki's own voice, there's also amusement, fondness, even sympathy. "You're hungover."

"No, I…" Loki reconsiders. The word is close enough. "Yes, I'm hungover. Don't laugh."

"Sorry," Tony says, insincerely. "It's just… Dammit, I'm still mad at you, and how do you keep being hard to yell at just when I've got solid reasons to? I've been staring off into space trying to deal with things like _magic_ , and this makes you more human."

"I'm not." So very strange, to say that aloud, and have it believed, and to let the truth of it stand without fear.

He had been terrified, on a level he couldn't control and couldn't fight. He could only avoid even the thought of it. The Aesir have come to Midgard, but not recently, even by his standards; this Loki knows. Then, they were worshiped as gods, which is entirely proper.

Midgardians should say, _they came to our world, and they were gods._

Instead they say, _they came to our world, and we killed them_.

Whispers, jokes, stories, of _others_ who fell to Earth – but this is not Loki's world, and he struggles to judge what is real and what is story. Such a desperately _wrong_ idea had frightened him deeply, knowing himself alone and without allies.

But not anymore, with Tony's hand warm between his shoulder blades. "Yeah. I know," Tony says, voice amazed. Warhammer-headache or no, Loki can't resist squinting through the timeless, too-bright light momentarily to see the expression on his face. It's wondering and awed, a little disgruntled, and _delicious_. "I'm never getting over that. But give me this one, okay?"

"I suspect I can deny you nothing within my power at the moment," Loki answers, on a whim. He gives the line a single breath, for Tony to make a small and pleased sound, before completing it. "Of course, at the moment, very little _is_ within my power."

"Oh, I walked into that one," mutters Tony, and Loki laughs, slightly muffled. "Yeah, you're gonna be fine, whatever you are. I…wasn't sure you were going to be, for a while."

"I'm hard to kill." It hurts to talk, but at least Tony's presence is a distraction from how muchit hurts. The backlash will fade, but never soon enough.

"That happen a lot?"

"Draining myself beyond my limits, trying to open a gateway back to my own world?" Loki snorts. "Fortunately not. People trying to kill me? Frequently."

He's heard Tony make a lot of noises over the years, but this is maybe the first whistle.

"I annoy people," Loki volunteers, before Tony develops the wrong impression of Asgard entirely. His home isn't all war and bloodshed – and war is a game _,_ almost, only played with sharper edges than those sports played at here, none of which Loki understands.

"Now that I can believe. _I'm_ annoyed."

"You said."

"Gonna keep saying it."

Loki, for his part, still cannot believe this man isn't standing over him with an axe. How can he so readily…

…forgive?

It's not a question Loki dares to ask. One thing to fight, hurling words at each other like scorching knives, and to tear at each other in anger and then in passion, but another entirely to speak of such things beneath sunlight and at peace. Instead, he deflects. "Don't laugh. I can't bear to be laughed at."

Tony chuckles anyway, but without malice enough for Loki to object to. "It's just…I've been wanting to get you properly drunk for ages, and you skipped straight to the hangover."

"No, you don't want that." Loki risks the world outside the pillow and finds it brightly lit but almost manageable. The thumping agony trampling through his skull like horses' hooves has dulled for the nonce, but Loki knows better than to trust it gone. "When I'm drunk, I don't become as foolish as you're doubtless hoping. I become cruel."

He grimaces, remembering past feasts that ran too long, when drinking deeply of rich Asgardian mead or dark wine was the only way to drown out the foolishness all around that sprawled like an overfull dog with its tongue grinning, belly bared and vulnerable. "I forget to curb my tongue, and tell people what I really think of them."

The hand in his hair falters. "So what do you think of me?" Tony asks.

Loki has to think about it, wondering how he can say everything this man has come to mean to him. The bright spark of intelligence, that asked for more even as it doubted, and the persistence, chasing a shadow and a dream. The trust placed in him, both before Tony knew the true shape of Loki's interest in him, and after that interest began to transform as surely as the shapeshifter who held it.

The warrior who'd wielded his enemies' cruelty against them, and risen blazing from their ashes. Who'd faced death's shadow, and turned her aside with light. Who did not need to be rescued, but did need to be held, with his enemies' blood on his hands. The prince of this world, who'd put down a rebellion against his throne as surely as Loki will no doubt have to, one day.

Nights spent talking, just to talk, because they wished to hear each other's voices, distant but together. Loki is worlds away from where he belongs and who he should be, but _come here_ in Tony's voice has started to sound like _come home._

The hurt and the wary fascination in Tony's eyes, but never fear, as he'd faced something he didn't even know existed, in the form of someone who'd betrayed him and _failed_ in the doing of it. The clever hand that had reached out to him, and even when it clenched into a fist, it closed empty, rather than around a gun or a blade. And Tony had fought him, and yielded to him, and perhaps even understood that in its own way, that was the only apology Loki is capable of offering.

 _See? Not all of it was a lie. Not this._

And after everything, Tony has not abandoned or rejected him, even as Loki's very existence upends everything his Midgardian lover has ever known.

Would Loki himself react quite so well, if someone tore away something _he_ has built his life upon? If someone told him, at the last, that he will _never_ be worthy in the All-Father's eyes, or an equal in Thor's?

He wonders if even his silver tongue can speak the words, should he ever discover what they are.

"I think," Loki says, his exposed back against Tony's thigh, his lover's hand in his hair, and almost at peace with that, "you're unlike anyone I've ever met."

" _Good,_ " Tony responds virulently, very near a curse.

Loki scowls into the pillow again. True, Tony has heard very little good of Asgard and its people, but that is only because Loki is angry, and has been since Tony has known him. Loki has a right to speak ill of Asgard. But the ill is not all that Asgard is.

He will have to restore the honor of his world in his lover's eyes, somehow.

After the backlash fades. And perhaps somewhat after that.

For they are, as she'd said, in no little trouble now…

* * *

For a time, Loki drifts in and out of sleep, escaping the only way he can. He traps the pain on one level of his consciousness and anchors his mind on another, where thoughts are like dreams, patched together vaguely as Loki schemes. He hears Tony coming in and out of the room, and is distantly aware that the man is checking on him.

That sinks through his drowsing awareness like a stone, forming a knot in the threads of his thoughts. Is Tony checking if Loki is recovered, or that he is still there? Does he fear, now, that Loki will disappear when he is not looking?

 _No_ , he knows, as ideas spiral together, possible futures aligning and diverging like sunlight on water. _No, I still need you…but by my side, now, if you'll have me by yours, and together we'll face the one who comes for us._

They have a lovely bit of magic still to work, simple and clean and as timeless as the light on the ocean, and Loki cannot say what pleases him more: that it's so ageless a trick, or that Tony's going to be beside him as he – as they – prepare it.

* * *

"I need to borrow your hangover," Tony announces, flopping backwards onto the bed. "Since you're not using it anymore."

"You don't want it." Loki turns his palms upwards, considering. He balances the temptation against the consequences, for he knows better than to paw at a healing wound.

He tends to do so anyway, especially when the only blood spilled is within his heart as he chews over unacknowledged grievances and casual insults.

"Yeah I do. Guess who Pepper's yelling at about the damage downstairs?"

"I highly doubt Pepper's actually shouting at you."

Tony grimaces. "I wish. She's being disappointed, so I said it was your fault, and she didn't believe me! She said you were too well-behaved, and that this had my fingerprints all over it – it's not that funny!"

Loki tries to stop snickering, and doesn't entirely succeed. "Her faith in me is touching, if sorely misplaced." He clicks his fingers once, experimentally, and bears the stab of pain behind one eye. It's a fair trade for the feeling of a breath released, not from his lungs but deeper within, and the wisp of light that springs to life in his palm, coiling and tumbling through itself.

Not lost, only drained, and Loki would close his eyes in a heartfelt sigh if he could do so and not lose sight of the little light. One day the backlash will be too great; he will overstretch himself, and the wound will never heal.

He has only scraped at the roots of his magic this time, not chewed them through like a serpent, biting so deeply and so relentlessly that he devours it beyond its capacity to regrow.

And if he closed his eyes, he would miss out on the sight of Tony, arms around him and chin propped on his shoulder, staring in wonder.

"That's seriously messing with my brain," Tony declares. "I still can't believe…I mean, magic, _real_ magic."

"It's only a light, pet," Loki says absently as the wisp coils through his fingers and braids itself around his wrist in mimicry of the bracelet still wound about the other one.

"Are you kidding? That's incredible. You just _willed_ that there, and you're controlling it with what, your mind? Nothing up your sleeves…"

Loki can't help but smile wryly. "Always something. Rarely literally." _I should have had something prepared, if making a Way failed, but I thought…_ Even in his thoughts, he hesitates. _I thought failure would kill me, or you would. But it was worth the risk…to go home._

But now… _Now that arrow is loosed, but I know the curve of its flight, and the winds that will shake it, and where it will strike home. It has a long arc still to travel, and I will be ready. The target you hit may not be the one you aim at, Father._

Things will happen now that _must_ happen, and he – and they – must prepare.

Tony hears nothing of this, of course, except for the spoken words. "So wait, do you actually keep knives here?" Loki's wrists are bare, as is the rest of him, but still Tony feels compelled to reach out and touch, pulling the magician's hands into his and running his fingers over the pulse in each.

They have been lovers for over a year now, but this feels like those first days, learning and testing each other, mapping out pleasures and desires, teaching each other the games they enjoyed and could play together. Loki grins, happy to play anew. "No," he says, "usually not."

"Like your holograms? But…I touched them," Tony thinks aloud; Loki has finally found someone who hears _illusionist_ and thinks about what it might mean. "I felt the hilts, and the leather of the sheaths."

Secrets upon secrets, and now Loki can tell them as he has wanted to for longer than he cares to admit, because – wary, wounded wolf in his nature, forever growling warnings, notwithstanding – the man now sitting by his side has provedhimself to be someone Loki can trust, even when Loki himself is not to be trusted.

Because _Loki_ would have struck, if someone he cared for had betrayed him so flagrantly, had turned and spat in his face, and then fallen, wounded by his own plots. Loki would have killed that traitor without a second thought, and would have been praised for such quick and right action. He would have stepped over their corpse and remembered them only as an object of hatred, a sharp-etched lesson to never again believe anyone who spoke soft words to him and offered him something he wanted.

And yet Tony, Midgardian, mortal, who should be _nothing_ to a prince and a god, takes Loki's hands in his and leans against his side, slotting his shoulder against Loki's in an affectionate nudge, and speaks to him without fear or rage or disgust.

Loki will _never_ understand Midgardians.

Or is it only that he has found the most baffling of them all?

"I can summon them like my armor, if I need to," he says instead. "And the knives direct to my hand, more often. Like so –"

His spell-bracelet is still around his left wrist, and he pulls that hand free from Tony's gentle grip. Giving in to the urge to play, he folds that hand up to his chest, and then snaps his arm out in slow motion, unfolding shoulder to elbow to wrist – and his long knife materializes in his hand like an extension of his arm.

A smaller dagger bites behind his eye, but Loki blinks it away and focuses on the warmth of the familiar spell against his skin.

Not quickly enough, though – "Hey," Tony says, even as he stares at the knife, its blade rippling with the ghosts of blue shadows beneath its surface, given new life by the afternoon sun. "If it hurts to – It's okay. I believe you. I mean," and he sounds so exasperated as he says it, "I'm still dealing with this, probably always will be. But I do. You don't have to –"

"I want to," Loki assures him, flipping the knife in his hand with a single movement, spinning it to point back along his forearm. He offers it to Tony, point away from the man, and realizes only after he's done it _what_ he's done.

"It's fine," he continues, words spilling free without thought. He has _offered someone else his weapon_ , what is _wrong_ with him?

But to Loki's great relief, Tony makes no immediate move to take it, and so he can dismiss the blade, folding it back into the spell laid into the leather cords.

"Did…that bracelet of yours just light up?" Tony asks immediately, and they're on ground Loki understands. And then, of course, they're straight back off it again. "Not to go all Tweety Bird on you here, but I thought I saw…"

"That's where I keep it," Loki says rather than ask _what?_ He understands birds, and he vaguely understands that tweet _ing_ is something _not_ exclusively for birds, but… No matter.

Tony touches the tips of his fingers to the leather bracelet, and looks at him skeptically.

Loki runs the phrase through his working understanding of English, and finds that it works. "To hand."

His lover slaps a hand against his forehead – _aha_ , that does mean what it sounds like; there's not a translation for 'facepalm' in Loki's own language. "Oh god," Tony moans overdramatically. "You're worse than me."

 _Oh, you still have no idea…_ Something to explore at another time, perhaps. "I didn't think of draining the power from it," Loki muses, twining his fingers into it and counting off the spells – to himself. Now is not the time to tell Tony about the tracking spell on him. "It's not enough to bother with, and pulling the magic out of it and remaking it would cost me more than I'd gain. You said…battery, did you not?"

"Yeah, I did," Tony says, sounding like he's not quite sure what conversation they're having.

 _No matter, pet; if I can speak my thoughts to you now, get used to me doing so, and you may learn my words as I have tried to learn yours._ "The magic is too tightly woven to easily take. This, also." Loki rests one finger against the warding spell-stone, still firmly affixed through his ear.

"You –" Mouth half-open in surprise, Tony does the same, and Loki lets him. "You've been wearing that since I met you. I've never seen you without it. You mean that's –"

"Magic? Yes. Gemstones serve well for such purposes. You saw me working on one, the night you returned home with this." For a moment, they're mirrors; Tony with a finger resting against Loki's bespelled gemstone, Loki with one finger above the arc reactor, blue and green.

And as Tony thinks back and his eyes go wide, Loki goes on. "It keeps me hidden from my father's…watchman, I suppose you'd say. The Gatekeeper, who can see anything in all the Realms, should he only look for it." _Heimdall, have I caught your eyes yet? Have you realized it's the shadow I cast you should search for?_

He grimaces. "I didn't want them…"

"Yeah." Tony grins back at him. "I get that. Look awesome, or don't be seen, right?"

Loki can't help but laugh, still unable to believe. "You are truly someone after my own heart."

It's a compliment, but Tony doesn't seem to take it as such, grin becoming a scowl. "Yeah. Thing is… One thing, Loki. It has to stop."

"What?" It's truly the only word he can muster, mind going blank, everything hanging in the balance even as that bitter, wary part of him howls mockery and triumph.

He knew it, _he knew_ it was too good to be true, too lovely a dream to be real. Tony's no different, he's seen too much and understands too little – or too much. Such a narrow path to walk, and Loki has been trapped there alone all his life.

"This," Tony says, waggling a finger back and forth between them, and at least the howl of wounded grief has not yet shown on Loki's face. Out of habit, he reaches for his magic and prepares to cloak himself in an illusion like imperturbable stone. He will not let Tony see how deeply the words he is about to speak will bite. Loki will give him no satisfaction in return.

And flee.

Alone again, after all.

"That thing you've been doing since we met. You lied to me, systematically and consistently and willingly, and don't think I've forgotten. _It stops,_ Loki."

Loki hears the words, but barely registers them. They're not what he expects.

"You _do not_ lie to me, understood?" Tony rests that pointing finger on Loki's breastbone. "No more. No more clever word games, or things you know I'm going to laugh off, or lies by omission. No more letting me wander off in the wrong direction while you watch. It's not okay. I want to trust you. I always have. So can I, or not?"

 _No, you can't,_ crackles along the sharp edge of Loki's tongue; _of course you can, pet_ , strums along the silver.

He says neither.

"Do you trust Pepper?" Loki asks instead, voice calm, face serene, letting nothing of the outrage that's already replacing heartbreak show – the nerve! To demand such a thing of him! How _dare –_

But he is not Asgard's younger prince, Asgard's intelligence and her terrible swift sword in the darkness, not here; he is only Loki, with magic in his hands and a true friend, if he can only keep the latter.

He does not break his promises, because he does not make _foolish_ ones.

"I – that's not what I asked, what does that have to do with –"

"Do you," Loki repeats steadily, "trust her?"

Tony pulls his hand back even as it turns into a fist, which Loki does not fail to notice. _Go on, then. Try it. I thoroughly enjoyed the last time you threw a punch at me, and this time there's a much more comfortable bed right here, and I_ do, _after all, know what's in some of those drawers…_

"Of course I do," he grits out. "Of course. She runs my whole life. She knows all my embarrassing stories. I don't know what I'd do without her. I don't _want_ to do without her. She should be CEO of the company by now, and I should have promoted her ages ago, but I don't want to lose her. Yes, I trust Pepper. Now what has that got to do with you and me?"

Loki knew all that already, but he's making a point. "Did you tell her about me, then?" he taps the blade against Tony. "Who I am? _What_ I am? What I can do?"

"I –" And Tony stops short, arguments tangling in his throat. "No."

 _I know you didn't. Because I wouldn't._ "Why not?"

Caught, Tony grumbles, "Because she wouldn't believe me? Because it wasn't the right time? Because I didn't know how? I dunno." He does everything but throw his hands in the air in frustration.

"Just so," Loki says. He's giddy again with relief – he is still wanted, he need not face the road and the battles ahead alone! – but he will _not_ be spoken to that way, and best not to let Tony develop a habit of it. "I trust you. But I'll tell you what you need to know when you need to know it, and when I know how to tell you."

"That's not –" Tony tries to object.

"– fair?" Loki cuts him off. "We discussed _fair,_ did we not? That is who I am. I want to share these things with you, now that I may, but you _will not_ demand what I cannot give." He can't help the smirk as he mimics Tony's words back to him. "Understood?"

There are clearly _many_ things Tony wants to say. The one that finds voice is a curt "Yeah."

"Good. Let me offer it, and I will. Command it of me, and I'll fight you. You wanted to know who I was. This is it."

Inasmuch as he can, Loki tempers his words, reining in the child who would not stop wearing his crown, until one day it fell apart – gold and richer metals it was, and still he'd worn it to destruction, because it was _his,_ and then demanded it remade anew. "If I must be here on Midgard, I want to be here with you. I want you safe, and I want you to be as extraordinary as I believe you are. I want to see that, and I want to show you my world someday. I trust you, and I don't trust even my own brother. You cannot ask me for more; I have no more to offer _._ "

Tony's blinking at him as if Loki has slapped him, which…Loki supposes he has.

Still, it was an impertinent thing to ask of him.

But what else did he expect? Loki would not keep company with someone _boring_ , who only stood meekly and did as he was told.

"Enough," Loki dismisses the past few minutes, waving them away with one hand as he rises. "I'm going to wash; I dread to think how long I've been asleep." He suits actions to words, sauntering off towards the bathroom where Tony has doubtless left the water on some dismally lukewarm setting.

He doesn't apologize, but he'll find a way to make it up to Tony later. Still, if they're truly starting over, as he remembers Tony saying to her, then there's perhaps one more rule they need to have clear, just to keep the peace.

"And, Tony?" He glances back over his shoulder to see his lover glaring at him, and isn't at all surprised. "Don't give me orders."

* * *

The sky has not yet cleared, and Loki watches the clouds, suspicious. But he has faith in his own shields, and he firmly believes that it will be _time_ , before the All-Father decides how to respond to his son's attempt to break his unjust exile, and determines where to send his force in reply.

From the rooftop balcony, he breathes in the smell of the ocean. It's not quite right. There's a sharper, harsher taste to it than the sweeter salt-tang of home, and rather than the faintest sense of the cloud of stars that cradle Asgard, he picks up the distant scents of human vehicles, gasoline and motor oil. He can hear them in the distance, that ever-present sound of roadways and travelers' machines.

But the ocean wind is the same almost everywhere, a familiar messenger and a welcome touchstone. Only the messages are different, traveling onward aimlessly, seeking blindly. There are secrets there, for someone who knows how to read them and can persuade it to give up its tales. _Ask the wind_ , his mother says, when she does not know.

There is no blazing lance of rainbow light burning through worlds, tearing even the air apart before it and leaving it to recombine harsh and depleted in that first breath. There is no _snap-rip_ of darker and more dangerous powers, throwing worlds out of balance as they shift beneath the force of the blow.

There is only the faint hum of energy beneath Loki's hands, singing through the metal of the walkway, echoing the power that runs throughout Tony's house; only the scents of fish and salt and weathered stone, and the cries of circling birds, and the wordless whispering of the hardy, twisted trees and smaller plants that cling to that stone in the face of all the ocean can bring down upon them.

Loki is tempted, for a moment, to join those birds in their flight, or to plunge down among them in the form of a sea eagle to send them scattering, squawking and all in disarray. Almost without thought, he could exchange his arms for wings, and his hair for a crest of feathers, and his nails for talons. It's hard to remember, in this form, the feeling of true, unaided flight. It's entirely a thing of the body, and this is the wrong body for it; his own flesh cannot understand the minute ruffles of tiny feathers that catch the edges of the air and spin off movement into balance, tiny creature controlling the indomitable force of the air within its wingspan.

He could do it. He could leap over this railing in a single step, and before his feet touched the deck a level below, the wind would have brushed across his feathers and carried him away.

"Another time," Loki tells the wind, and it adds his words to its secrets, making them disappear.

Instead, he returns to the house, and the man he still does not understand. His feet trace their own path on instinct, for Tony's house has become familiar while he was distracted. And as he traverses the sprawling, interlocking rooms, making the journey from rooftop perch to basement workshop, Loki can think of other things.

The shape of the headland, for one, and its defensibility, should it come to that. It should not, or so Loki hopes, but could he do it, if he had to? Could he – could _they_ , he must not forget – defend this place against an assault, should the All-Father send many, rather than one, or even a few?

Such musings bring him to the door of the downstairs lab where, through the low lighting and the glass panels that wall it off from the staircase, Loki can see Tony hard at work. The engineer – _his_ engineer, his companion and ally still – is standing over his drafting table, hands darting through the air as he commands the projections to move and JARVIS responds. Shapes slot around each other like a puzzle, as jagged edges are covered over with smoother ones, and small pieces are tucked into the shadows of larger ones. A counter in one corner wavers, numbers adding up and decreasing in response to Tony's actions. It dips significantly as he jabs a finger towards it and snaps something Loki cannot determine from this side of the soundproof material; he can read lips, but not in English.

The gesture turns into waving hands, brushing some of JARVIS' words away and weighing others, and Tony pauses for a moment before scattering the illusory pieces in all directions and starting again.

As he plunges back into his project – something to do with the Iron Man suit, Loki realizes, spotting familiar curves and cunningly rendered weapons laid just below the skin of it – the magician taps in his permission to enter and is _not at all_ actively relieved when the door still opens for him.

Reassured nevertheless, Loki gives into an impulse as he steps into the room, calling up a memory and flowing towards it, and twitches his tail aside before the door can close on it.

Blending into the darkness of the room, Loki slinks around the patches of light reflecting outward from the shifting images above the drafting table. He dabbles a paw in one of them as Tony growls wordlessly before muttering something about "packing problems" and folding toys and stupid cartoons lying to him. In this form, Loki need only stretch his nose towards a space between two desks to know that it will not admit even this smaller, sleeker body, overfilled as it is with wires and cables.

Interesting. JARVIS, all-seeing within these walls, has made no comment on Loki shapeshifting before its – his – mechanical eyes. Tony must have found words for JARVIS that he could not speak convincingly to Pepper, or perhaps JARVIS is programmed to believe all his master tells him, even if it violates all he has been taught before. Has JARVIS been told to trust Loki, and that is why the computer mind raises no alarm? Loki creeps beneath a shelf as he wonders, and –

Oh, there is a spider!

Loki pounces at it on the body's desires, batting at the scuttling thing as it tries to escape into that dusty nest of wires. It's quick, and Loki hunts it more by movement than by the color or shape of it, night-sharp eyes tracking readily. But it's small, and his claws find nothing to tear, only to crush by chance, and still it tries to climb over his paw, betraying its presence by the way its many legs tickle his fur.

It tastes sour when Loki snaps it up, and he spits it out again. This body does not want to _eat_ it, only to catch and chomp it.

Thin tail waving with triumph even as his ears go back in irritation at the taste that lingers on his rough tongue, Loki rubs his shoulder against a leg of the drafting table, coiling around it possessively, and remembers himself before this form gives into the temptation of Tony's trailing shoelace or the gleaming steel nut that has fallen and been forgotten.

Quietly, quietly – bigger prey to pounce upon.

He listens only idly to the conversation between Tony and JARVIS, waiting for the break in it, which comes soon enough. Tony slumps into a chair, saying, "This sounded like such a great idea back in New York. Maybe if we –"

His fingers are loose, dangling towards the floor, and Loki brushes against them, presenting fur to be stroked.

To his delight, Tony obliges absentmindedly, and then yelps, "What the –" as he snatches his hand back. "JARVIS, lights up!"

The ceiling lights go on at once, flooding the room with counterfeit sunlight; Loki springs to the illuminated surface of the drafting table as Tony's chair goes in one direction and the engineer himself goes in another, most inconsiderate of the cat's small paws or waving tail.

"This is not my cat," Tony says, staring as the jet-black cat licks at one paw indignantly. "I don't have a cat. Why the hell is –"

He stops, mouth going slack. Oh, what Loki would _give_ for that expression of awe and incredulity and wonder – it's very nearly worship.

" _Loki?_ " the man blurts, in a tone of complete disbelief.

Lessons sharply learned analyze the drafting table and decide it's sturdy enough, and Loki shifts back to his own Aesir form without bothering to move from the edge of it, laughing as he does. "You startle wonderfully, pet."

Tony curses him in a variety of improbable ways and throws half a roll of duct tape at him. Loki catches it midair and decides to keep such a useful item, dismissing it down a thread of his bracelet and into his pocket dimension where he hides such things.

"…fucking _lunatic_ ," Tony falls back on, even as his eyes track the whisper of light and magic. Loki turns his empty hands up and smirks. "Wow! That's…holy _shit,_ that's a hell of a trick. Okay, you got me. You got me good." But he's smiling _,_ even if it's barely more than an open-mouthed gape, and Loki does not let himself kick his feet back and forth happily. _This_ body, at least, he can control, and if he never eats another spider again, it will be too soon, as they say here. And he'd so nearly managed to forget the giant ones of the Underlands, and of fighting his way past them with every weapon he could bring to bear, even fang and claw…

Tony shakes his head, amazed. "For a minute there I thought I'd gone crazy. Now I'm sure of it. Where did the rest of your mass even _go?_ "

Confronting something beyond his experience, that contradicts everything he knew about his world, and still Tony manages to baffle Loki in return. "I…what?"

"That just violated so many laws of physics, I can't even list them. You're not a small guy, and even as that lovely woman you're still tall."

Does Tony have the slightest idea, Loki wonders as he recognizes the symptoms of his lover's brain and mouth running off together unstoppably, how remarkable they are, those words he just said so casually? How could he possibly know how much disapproval had been brought down upon Loki's shoulders, whenever she'd been careless enough to be discovered in girl's or woman's form?

The whispers that followed him, and the jokes, for years afterwards, until some new scandal caught the attention of the court? Loki had _designed_ some of those scandals, to place the burning brands of their mockery against another's skin. The dismissive wave of her father's hand, the only time Loki had stood before him thus, possessed by some madness to show herself as his daughter as well as his younger son?

Oh, that had been a terrible mistake, and it had been all she could do to bow in surrender and stride away with the last tatters of her dignity, the rumbling echoes of "Asgard requires no princess" grinding themselves into her bones. Mockery and disapproval, even rejection, she could have borne – those things Loki is accustomed to – but it had been a _threat_ , and one Loki could not fail to recognize.

 _Don't give me so easy a reason to deny you your heart's desire._

But Tony's wondering instead about the physics of the way he sees the world. "That, I can see the math maybe working, you'd just redistributed it some. But you just went from a five-kilo cat to, what, 85 kilos of smartass prankster, who I'm going to get back at for that heart attack you just gave me, by the way. And where'd that go in between? Hang on, can it go the other way around, too? Can you be something bigger than you?"

Loki pushes the memories away, resolves to find some way to reward Tony for his acceptance, and grins at his lover wryly, all in an instant. "Oh, certainly. There are extremes beyond my reach, but any form I take in combat must be able to hold its own." Tony starts to ask another question, doubtless _how?_ and Loki raises a hand to forestall him. "I told you, pet, I can't do the maths. It's something I am, rather than something I learned to do." The drafting table is still activated, and Loki glances around at the images swirling around him, disrupted by his presence like tame fish around a grasping hand. "But what are you doing?"

With an exasperated breath, Tony rolls his eyes and says, "Something I at least understand. Mostly. Designing a suit that's easier to put on." He grins. "Damn, wish you _could_ tell me where the rest of you goes when you're a cat, or whatever, because that's the problem I'm dealing with here. It's too big. Too heavy. But I want to pack it into something briefcase-sized, and have it auto-assemble, because then I can call it a suitcase suit."

"Oh, you must call it that," Loki approves, listening to the words rather than the meaning. It's more work, but how else is he to understand _jokes?_ "And if you cannot figure it out, tell me. When I said my travel bag" – Tony's term, adopted – "was bigger on the inside, I did mean it."

Tony looks at him like he's the sunrise, and with those eyes turned on him, Loki does indeed feel as if he might glow with warmth.

"But you could not then repair it," he adds hastily, to forestall himself from leaping from the drafting table and crossing the distance between them, pulling Tony to his feet and dragging him down to the couch over by the small kitchen, to taste that amazement from his lips. That is _not_ what they need to focus on now, no matter how much Loki would rather indulge. "And you do mean to take it into battle, do you not?"

Flipping a pen between his fingers – is it to give his hands something to do, that gesture? Would he, too, prefer to explore that heat that crackles between them? – Tony grimaces and looks away, saying, "Yeah, if I have to. Really hope I don't, but if I need the suit in a hurry, it's probably because someone's shooting at me. Or someone I care about."

Loki doesn't say _you don't have to protect me_ ; that wounded wolf in his soul is still uncertain of his place at Tony's side and in his affections, and always will be. Instead, he says merely, "And it will be as strong and quick as the other one, then?"

"Should be," Tony says, wary now. "Why?"

And now they're where they need to be, and Loki sees their path unfold before them. "You should put the other one on, then," he suggests.

It's not an order, a curt _arm yourself_. Given that he has forbidden Tony to command _him_ , Loki reminds himself that he must guard his tongue and remember that Tony is not trained to obey just because it is Asgard's prince speaking.

Not a pawn to be manipulated, or a subordinate to be commanded, but an ally – this is harder…

"And again," Tony asks, "why?"

"You and that suit need to be ready to fight Aesir. And I don't believe you understand quite what that entails."

Tony hesitates, thinking, but not for long. "You want to spar with me?" he concludes, interested.

 _Oh, do I ever, pet!_ "Come on, then," Loki urges him, setting his feet to the floor again and reaching out a hand, already turned towards the doorway to the room Tony built – clever man – for just this fight. "Perhaps it's time I told you about my brother."

* * *

"You're not serious," Tony says, eyeing Loki's weapon dubiously – or so Loki must assume, with the faceplate of Tony's armor down, eyes glowing and voice cracking with metallic overlay.

He's not, entirely. "Don't underestimate us because our weapons seem archaic," Loki warns him, and if the smirk he can feel twisting the corner of his mouth, or the casual way the length of borrowed steel idles in his hand, does not warn his lover that something is amiss, then that is a lesson that must be learned at once.

Aloft on the energy blazing from the suit's limbs, Tony growls, "I know you're stronger than you look, but even you can't fight this with a stick –"

Loki doesn't give him a chance to finish. He was wrong anyway.

He leaps as if he were flying, finally free to move to his full ability – to stride, to run, to spring! He has walked softly and taken small steps and held himself back for so long, choking himself on a chain of reluctant fear and simmering resentment, but now those lies are over, and nothing remains but the chance to show Tony, at last, what he can _really_ do.

The metal pole is left over from Tony's welding projects, cut down by chance to Loki's own height, and it fits neatly into his grip as he brings it around in a swift, short arc. The quarterstaff slams into the suit's armored stomach with a sharp _crack!_

Reverberations ringing in his hands, Loki bares his teeth in a wolf's laugh as Tony and his battle-armor spin backwards and off-balance through the air, limbs flailing for control with all the breath knocked out of his lungs, if Loki judged his blow aright. No fracture cuts through the armor plating, he notes even as his feet hit the ground again with perfect confidence, whipping around and bringing his weapon back to readiness again.

The red and gold armor – a shame, that; bright and beautiful, but so reminiscent of his brother's favored colors – stabilizes quickly, as Tony shouts, "Holy _shit!_ " and extends his gauntlets out for balance, hovering at a safer distance.

Loki turns his face up to it and laughs, hearing the sound ring out through the sparring room more clearly and honestly than it has since he was banished to this world. Over the sound of metal joints whirring into a defensive position, and the building scream of the repulsors in Tony's palms being brought to bear, he challenges, "Fight me, lover, or I'll break this over you."

It's warped already, the balance wrong and a curve just the size and shape of the Iron Man armor turning it into a scythe, but no matter – there are more durable weapons waiting for Loki to summon them, forged on Asgard and set aside for his use.

More warily now, Tony drops to the ground and raises his fists, one kept loose and open as the power hums readily. The red paint is scratched across the breastplate – first blood is Loki's, then! – and the magician can almost see his real eyes narrowing in calculation as the eye-slits flicker and that metallic voice growls, "Putting me through my paces, huh?"

Loki smirks at him, real affection in his voice, and no little mischief, "I'd trot you out on a lead rein with a riding crop if you'd let me. Now _fight me_ , and let's see how we fare."

Tony leaps for him, fists striking out, and Loki spins away, letting momentum carry Tony too far. With both hands on the quarterstaff, he brings the center of it down on one vambrance, knocking his outstretched arm aside, and at once sweeps the new curve of it down and up again, catching against a braced foot.

Immediately, Tony throws his full armored weight backwards and to the side, pushing the staff back into Loki's body and throwing him off-balance instead. Metal-armored shoulders slam against familiar leather armor, and Loki knows his own ravenous grin as he pivots on one foot, refusing to bear that weight and that blow.

Freeing himself with a twist of his body and the heel of one hand slammed into a joint between plates – were this a real fight, there would have been a knife slicing beneath a weak point, and blood on his hands – Loki feels his heart speeding up, his vision clearing, the burning joy of a good fight racing through his muscles. He has _missed_ this, missed the intricate play of chase and defense, attack and deflection, testing and learning, bodies straining to their limits. He savors it even as he fights to prove the truths he can finally show, as Tony finds space to open his hands, joints locking, and unleash pure force upon him.

Loki's own hand comes up in reply, the magic for a shield springing into green-tinged light, wrapping around him and splashing the blast away like water around a streambed stone. Just the same, the repulsors chip away at his magic, eroding the edges from it, and with a snap of his fingers, Loki frees it to stand on its own. Under the cover of blazing light that Tony has so generously provided him with, he leaps away.

Not back, but up, taking advantage of those high ceilings Tony had built for the suit's maneuverability, which Loki is happy to make his own. Such a perfect, liberating joy, to _jump_ as if gravity never bound him, to no longer be limited to the pitiful stride that mortals can leap!

The strike is off-center, the curve in Midgardian steel growing with every blow, but his makeshift quarterstaff clips one armored shoulder in its descent. He doesn't quite knock Tony to his knees, but his friend stumbles, forcing him to raise one hand in belated defense and lower the other for balance.

That raised hand cracks out towards Loki's face in a punch, which he dodges rather than blocks, but then it opens and turns, repulsor glowing a breath from his face.

"Try it," Loki invites, rapping what should be the sharp end of a spear against Tony's gorget, guarding his throat.

"God _damn_ ," Tony curses in reply. "That's pure steel, and it's going to break before you do, isn't it?"

"Oh, long before," Loki says happily. Drawing back – and pushing Tony's gauntlet aside with one hand; his partner lets him do it – he examines the warped metal as if he's never seen it before. Performing, yes, and in the back of his mind he can hear Thor complaining _one of these days, brother, a match without the playing,_ but this is his game, is _their_ game.

"Forged on your world, and little use to me, thus," he continues, and casts it aside, where it rattles away into a corner. Tony's eyes, as far as Loki can tell, stay fixed on him. Clever man.

"Asgardian weapons break less easily," he completes his thought, rotating his hands around each other and feeling the magic sing between them, shaping itself into the form of a spear he'd borrowed from one of the palace training grounds and never returned. His hands know the feel of it even before it materializes fully, as the swirling light fades. "As to what it would take to shatter my brother's weapon, I can scarcely imagine."

"Your brother –" Tony cuts himself off. "You think he's coming after us, now that you've got their attention again."

"I'm sure of it." Bringing the spear around in a sweeping arc, Loki jabs the lethal point at his sparring partner in warning, just a flicker of movement to catch his attention as red and gold armor reflects off rippling blade. _We're not done; keep up._

And Tony rises to the invitation, striding forward and aiming a punch dead center at his chest. His armored fist hits the body of the spear, raised defensively, but not even a hairline crack shows in what looks like wood – and it is, just not of a tree that grows on this world, that must be shaped with magic or edges harder and sharper than Midgard's diamonds can offer.

"Guessing they might be a little upset, then?"

"We – I – challenged them." Loki darts the spearpoint at the repulsor turned against him, just as he'd strike for a Jotun's eye, and Tony flinches away just as instinctively.

"We," he says, nevertheless, projected voice growling. "I helped. Unwittingly, most of the time, but are they going to care about that?"

"No. Not if you remain my ally."

"So, _we_ , then," Tony says. Loki nearly misses his own counterattack, too distracted by that. He pays for his inattention in the ache that spreads across his forearm, legacy of fire that strikes his armor but does not pierce.

He has never understood the All-Father, but this, at least, Loki comprehends: it is the foundation of everything Asgard is. You _cannot_ ignore a challenge, or you are nothing. "They have to respond. My father must respond. I defied him, in trying to return home before I was bidden, and my father is the king of all Asgard, and everywhere our authority stretches. Odin All-Father does not tolerate defiance, least of all by his sons."

His voice is bitter as he takes advantage of Tony's hovering flight to dodge into his shadow and stay there, chasing his lover's shifting blind spot.

"Fuck that," Tony says, and Loki, despite everything, flinches. _No, don't_ , his training as a prince and a warrior wants to snap out, coming to the defense of a man Loki often hates. He will rail against Odin in thoughtless and angry moments, but he is nevertheless Loki's king and his father and his commander. On Midgard, Loki is a god, capable of reworking the fabric of their mortal world.

On Asgard, Odin can strip everything from him with nothing more than a dismissive word and an averted eye. Gods should not haveto plead for approval, for acknowledgement, but under Odin's gaze, Loki is a child, terrified of his father's cold and distant anger.

"But I know what he'll do," Loki promises as he launches a barrage of strikes, blade and heavier base flickering around and against Tony's armor in a flurry of movement as fast as he can manage, faster than any mortal could follow unaided. The computer linked to Tony's helmet can, perhaps, but the suit's joints cannot match its pace, and the human stumbles backwards once, twice. "I know who he'll send –"

The punch comes in under his guard, slamming into ribs that were broken less than a day ago, and Loki bares his teeth in a rictus smile; the bruises linger, hidden deep within.

"– and I can deal with Thor."

Tony startles, visible even within the armor. "That's your brother?"

He has never mentioned Thor's name aloud to Tony, partly because speaking it hurt too greatly, one more reminder of how far from home he is and what he has lost. Thor frustrates him endlessly, but he is Loki's brother. Loki has lived in his shadow all his life, so long that sometimes it seems protection from the glare that awaits him otherwise. One or the other: it is the way things are. He does not know _what_ he feels about Thor; resentment and jealousy, certainly, of the admirers Thor wins so easily despite the heavy-handed arrogance and the willful deafness to anything he does not want to hear or does not understand, but there is longing, too, to have some of that easy regard turned on him, for once.

And because even Midgard has linked their names, and Loki did not need Tony wondering if perhaps the magician might be something else after all.

"Direct where I am evasive," Loki says, suiting actions to words and circling. Tony's armor turns clumsily, less flexible than Loki's, and after a few overly precise steps, he takes to the air again. "My weapon is the blade, and misdirection," and Tony, anticipating, jerks away from the tip of the spear. Loki holds it motionless – misdirection, he _said_ , and adds, "Thor wields the most powerful warhammer our armories have ever held, forged in the heart of a star – blunt and forceful, as is he."

As he speaks, Loki snaps his own weapon out towards Tony's greaves, folding one leg back on itself with the blow. The loss of one repulsor, pointed suddenly in the wrong direction, throws him off balance, and he crashes back to the ground.

Loki swats him before he can rise, just a light blow to the crown of his helm, and goes on. "Thor is easy to predict. Should a serpent the size of a river rise from the sea, or a squadron of lightcutters from Alfheim appear in the sky, or his mead is delayed to the table, his response is the same – hit it with a hammer, and continue to do so, until the situation is remedied."

Chuckling even as he mutters curses, Tony raises a hand in surrender, and Loki lowers his weapon, offering his own hand to help him rise.

He's breathing hard when he removes his helmet, but his eyes are wondering, and when he shakes his head, it's in disbelief but not denial. "I don't know if it's a cliché on…Asgard…too, but humans say that when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail."

"Ha!" Loki can't resist reaching out, placing his hand against Tony's face in a caress. "Yes, I've heard it, and the first time I did, I had to leave the room. I thought I would never stop laughing." It's one of the earlier good memories, as he'd worked his way into an incomprehensible city where magic, or at least illusion, was common. Loki had understood so little, groping for familiar ideas and customs, and the woman's words had caught him like a candle-flame in pitch darkness. _That's Thor, to the life,_ he'd thought, _there are people like him here too…_

The hand raised to cover his is armored still, but the metal is warm and familiar, no less a part of Tony than the cat's fur had been part of Loki, before. "So am I going to know this guy when I see him?"

"He's difficult to miss," Loki says tartly. "The same height as me, or close enough. But blond, and built heavier, and the days when he is quite so neat as this –" His fingers brush against Tony's lips and the tidily-groomed small beard. "– are rare indeed."

A thought strikes him, and Loki smiles. "And I can show you, can I not?"

It's no effort at all to imagine Thor, down to the last visible detail – his brother hates it, but Loki has mimicked him before – and flick his fingers towards an empty patch of the sparring room.

It hurts…less than he'd imagined. Not the magic, but the memory.

For a few moments, at least, Asgard's golden, beloved prince stands there, sunlight where his younger brother is shadow. So easy to trust, because everything he feels and thinks shines through on his face and spills from his tongue at once. Untouchable in his confidence that everything will be just fine because he wants it to be, and that very soon he and his chosen companions will be toasting and teasing each other over a laden table.

Thor's long blond hair is cut back just beyond his shoulders, and his strong jaw is lined with the beginnings of the beard he never has the patience to grow properly – and looks increasingly ridiculous as he tries, a fact of which Loki never tires of reminding him. He's just as he was when Loki last saw him, before everything went wrong – no. Tony has not yet asked him exactly what circumstances brought him here, so Loki does not need to think about them.

Mjolnir's handle rests in his hand, the weight of it held so casually, strap wound around his wrist. _Why?_ Loki has sometimes wondered. The hammer returns to his hand when called for, and does Thor really think it might be taken from him? But his brother's puppy smile gives the lie to that, careless and carefree.

The image wears full armor, billowing red cape and studded miniature shields guarding those points soldiers are trained to strike for, basic training as mechanical as Tony's crudest toys. The hand not gripping Mjolnir cradles the winged helmet Thor wears sometimes, leaving his face bare to be recognized, when the real one arrives.

And he will. Everything Loki knows demands it; the question is only if he will come alone, or with his companions at his heels.

"Damn," Tony says, staring at the image of Thor, and not at Loki, which the magician welcomes – what shows on his face, he cannot be sure. "Your people really are space Vikings! Kind of guessed from the names, but… I would not have thought you were brothers." Something occurs to him, and he grins. "And that answers one of my questions, at least."

Loki's glad of the chance to look away. "Oh?"

His lover's mouth twists, ruefully. "There's _your_ square-jawed noble blond."

Loki has a few guesses himself about who Tony's is. It was a _very_ interesting book about their second world war.

"Maddeningly so," he says instead. "I do my best to irritate him equally, and we've been quarreling all our lives. Brothers do, I suppose…but that's Thor." Loki waves a hand superfluously, dismissing the too-sharp memory, vivid and barbed both. "He's entirely straightforward, and almost painfully honest. Not because he thinks it's the right thing to do, but because it doesn't occur to him that anyone will be able to object to a word he says."

He's listening to Tony's breathing as he speaks, waiting for it to steady. The moment he decides his sparring partner has rested enough, he knocks the base of the spear held idly in one hand against the greaves of the Iron Man armor, no more than a twitch to get his attention and no harder than he'd rap on a door.

Should he ever bother to knock on doors…

"Right," Tony says, as if he'd forgotten why they are here. "Training to fight space Vikings. Or at least getting some terrifying baseline readings. Definitely not cutting anything out of the suitcase suit."

And they're back at it, harrying each other across the room and battering at each other's defenses, feet shifting across the coarse ground, braced to absorb a blow one moment, and kicking off into a flying leap the next. Faint scorch marks, daubed across the walls, show where small projectiles and burning lasers have missed their target, who throws himself into the simple glory of step and recoil, strike and counterattack, feint and evasion, leap and spin, the sheer physical pleasure of bodies doing what bodies are _for_.

Tony's better prepared this time, believing Loki's claims at last. Rather than fighting in close quarters, he keeps out of Loki's reach and the sweep of the spear-blade, and Loki grins, happier to be with him, challenging each other and learning, than brooding over sore memories and imagined confrontations.

"Good," he calls out, when Tony's darted away before Loki can counterattack.

Almost. Loki raises his hand as if in salute, and then snaps it down. His throwing knives solidify out of magic and the air, hissing past Tony's faceplate and skipping off the metal. One lodges in a joint between plates as Tony yelps in surprise and twists away reflexively.

"Let me guess," he growls, coming back down to the ground and plucking the trapped blade free. "Not fair."

"Never," the illusion Loki's left in his place answers, and dissolves the moment the invisible real one flicks the spear-shaft up to smack into his lifted hand, closing it across Tony's body like a latch and immediately pulling it back to trap man and armor alike against his chest.

Tony swears, and tries to tread on his foot, and they wrestle for his freedom, machine power and human ingenuity against Aesir strength and ready magic.

With the layers of armor in the way, they're not even close to touching, and yet…Loki's breath is coming faster and shallower, and not from exertion, and from this close he can hear that Tony is similarly affected, cradled within his shell as he is. Exhilaration bubbles through him as they struggle together, churning his body into readiness to strike and take and conquer, strip the barriers away and devour his prize. Loki could never have imagined that a mortal might spar with him and hold his ground, and it's just as tantalizing as he'd hoped.

"So why not –" Tony grits out, wrenching at Loki's wrist. "– an army?"

Loki meets the hand opening towards him over his lover's shoulder with a pinpoint shield, adding a twist to the spell that sends the energy washing back and knocking Tony's hand away instead. "For us? Asgard's might, brought to bear? Unlikely."

"If you're so goddamn scary –"

"I'm a _prince_. I'm _their_ prince, and one day I'll command them again; you do not teach soldiers to overthrow their superiors." Tony tears free, and Loki blurs away, cloaking himself in invisibility and letting Tony see him do it, flickering like a shattered reflection; red-gold armor hums, power ready with no clear target.

"Thor is my equal, and my elder, and who else has the authority to chastise me, if my father will not come himself? And that, he will not do."

He's given himself away by speaking, and Loki can see Tony's sensors triangulating on his voice. With his position off to Tony's left revealed, Loki shifts his magic from invisibility into a barrage of throwing blades, completely unreal but flying from his hands as if they might be.

Yelping and leaping backwards, repulsors blazing, Tony still manages to say, "So, no prime directive, then?"

"No what?"

Tony levels a fist at him, laser component unfurling from the armor, and Loki drops into a half-crouch, spear leveled and steady in his hands, ready to charge. "Noninterference policy towards less-advanced civilizations. I know you know what _Star Trek_ is."

"I know what it _is,_ but as for the details… Your world creates so much in so little time, and it moves faster than mine," Loki says, not without resentment, and puts the lie to that immediately by lunging at Tony before he can fire.

"And nothing of the sort –" he says between blows, few of which get past Tony's guard, but which serve to ward off that burning laser, painful but not incapacitating, "– but closer to the mark – that the last time we looked – your world wasn't interesting enough – to fight with! You've come so far – in so little time –"

Giving up on the laser, Tony opens his hands and blasts the repulsors, both at once, throwing him backward and knocking Loki away. "And when was that?" he asks, landing before he hits the wall.

Loki flicks his hair out of his eyes without looking away from his partner's movements, and shrugs. "Six hundred of your years, perhaps?"

What he has not said – what he _will_ not say, what he will barely admit even to himself – is that Odin All-Father will send Thor after him because Thor has been imposing his will on his younger brother all Loki's life, bigger and heavier and with the power of their father's regard and _because I'm the oldest, that's why_ behind him.

Rather than fight him directly, because then they only end up with their hands around each other's throats, brawling like dogs, Loki has learned to open his hands and step aside and roll his eyes when Thor is not looking. Instead, he will cast his gaze over the victory Thor thinks he has won, and judge exactly how, with the least interference and the least risk of getting caught, he can spoil that victory with no one the wiser. Or he will stand by and do nothing, and let Thor do whatever foolish thing he wishes to, and remark caustically on the doing of it and the outcome until his brother roars at him to begone.

On the surface – and perhaps even in truth – Thor is one of the few people on Asgard with any control over Loki at all.

"Six _hundred_ – damn, that must have been some pretty good _Call of Duty_ you guys were playing in the meantime."

Loki doesn't understand that sentence at all.

"Fine, no army. Probably a good thing." The glowing eyes of Tony's armor scan the room as Loki circles around their gaze, prowling ready to attack. "But don't they have someone who handles things like this? Doesn't sound like…Thor…would be very good at it. A troubleshooter, a fixer, a special agent or something? No Asgardian version of SHIELD out there?"

Lowering his weapon, Loki comes to a stop to laugh properly, setting the base of it against the ground to lean his weight against. "Yes, they do. And he's very good at it, and he's very dangerous. You'd never see him coming, and you'd never know he was there. Not until whatever you were planning had been taken apart and set aflame, possibly with you within."

Timing, misdirection…and just when his prey hesitates, the pounce.

"He also happens to be _me_ ," he adds, a breath before Tony speaks. "I'm Asgard's _fixer_ , as you put it, because I understand that the appearance is not always the reality, and my skills lend themselves to subterfuge, and I can keep my mouth shut for more than three minutes." He rolls his eyes, just for a moment. "Sometimes all I seem to do is fix what Thor has broken…while he's not looking, of course."

It's Tony's turn to laugh aloud, a single bark of pure delight. "Of _course_ you are! Man, I bet you're really something at it, too. If I were your people, I'd be worried – hard to outmaneuver James Bond when he's gone rogue. Awesome!"

Flattered, Loki grins back at him. That is one of Midgard's warrior heroes, he knows, a hunter of his people's enemies who both fights and deceives, controlled and fearless. He seems to have lived a very busy life, the warrior Bond James Bond, to have so many stories told about him, and it was cunning of him to keep his true face hidden so that no one would know him as he worked; or so Loki assumes, since the storytellers cannot agree on his appearance for their reenactments. "Not by choice," he reminds Tony. "But that's all to our advantage."

"You have a plan," Tony says, voice gleeful. "You gonna share it with me this time, or do I have to beat it out of you?"

"Is that what you're doing here?" Loki looks around the room with mock fascination, everything about him at ease, even the spear propped against his boot.

"Listen here, you mad bastard, if you don't start talking, I'm gonna –"

"Peace, Tony," Loki says hurriedly, raising a hand before Tony can start threatening him and Loki starts daring him to try it, for that will escalate into madness at once. "Thor will come for us, and that's all we need. Get him into the same room as me, and let it be on my own terms, away from other eyes, and that's a situation I can control."

Tony chuckles, the armor's speakers turning it into a metallic rattle. "Why do I suspect you're not going to just ask your dear, beloved brother for help?"

"Oh, hardly." There are things Loki _will not_ do, and they include apologizing, singing, and asking Thor's help. "But people see what I want them to, and Thor certainly won't stay here forever… Impress me, Tony. Guess."

And with that, he springs to the attack again, adding, "And guard yourself!"

Tony's armored hands come up, and snatch at the spear just below the point, and the armor braces him against the ground as he tries to wrench it out of Loki's hands. It's a good move – like most of Asgard's warriors, Loki has had _never drop the weapon_ quite literally beaten into him, and he's reluctant to give a weapon over into the hands of an opponent. He flips one hand around on the shaft and levers it across his body, trying to throw Tony aside.

The Iron Man armor is heavy, but Loki is strong… And he has other options than force, so as Tony hauls on the spearhead, joints whirring with effort, Loki releases it and leaps away.

The blade scores a line across Tony's chestplate, the engineer reacting fast enough to avoid ramming it into his own heart, and Loki flips his empty hands around each other, dismissing the weapon. It fades to light and scatters, but only for moments: Loki repeats the gesture, calling it back, and the spear reforms in his hands and far out of reach of Tony's.

"That is so not… _fuck_ ," Tony curses. "Magic, oh my god, talk about cheating!"

"It changes _everything,_ " Loki says, knowing that for the truth. "Guessed yet?"

He keeps his eyes on Tony as the man lunges for him, and mostly evades the punch that glances off his shoulder. The Iron Man suit could be stronger, but it will at least _surprise_ an Asgardian warrior, should Thor bring his companions along with him. They will certainly not expect Tony.

 _Everyone I could have found,_ Loki thinks happily, _and it was you_.

Deaf to Loki's thoughts, Tony has been wrapped up in his own. "I…hey. _Hey!_ " He laughs, tentatively and then confidently. "I think I know what you're getting at. If I say _bait and switch_ , am I getting warm?"

 _You are_ perfect, _clever man._ "If I can't go to them," Loki says, "then they _will_ come to me. They'll send someone trusted, and that's all I need. I'll be waiting."

" _We_ will," says Tony, and snaps the repulsors up into Loki's face when the magician smiles at him.

"Now _that's_ more like it!" Loki approves, truly delighted, from behind the shelter of his raised arm, and stabs his long knife down across Tony's hands.

One knife becomes several, scattering out as fast as Loki can summon them, some of them real and some of them illusion. It's less effective than before: Tony has figured out that the randomness of them is a distraction, meant not to strike but to startle, and that the Iron Man suit is strong enough to deflect them. He charges through them, springing from the ground and bringing his weight down behind a flying punch.

Doubtless their battle would have resumed from there. But beneath the noise of their movements, there is a sound that does not belong.

Finally distracted away from the fight, Loki takes his eyes away from Tony for the first time in several minutes and looks around.

…to where Pepper is standing in the doorway, clinging to the edge of the half-open door and hiding behind the rest. Her face is pale, hair and neat blue-black suit standing out in bright contrast; her eyes are wide, and one hand is clapped over her mouth – _that_ was what he heard, a voice too high to be Tony's crying out in surprise. One of Loki's knives is embedded a little way into the door, closer to the hinges, and even as he realizes that she's there, gravity pulls it free and it clatters to the ground.

Tony follows his line of sight, and comes out of his hover so fast it's possible the floor has cracked beneath his falling weight.

"Whoops," he says.

"Door not locked?" Loki asks rhetorically, feeling a sudden and stupid impulse to hide his weapon behind his back.

"Nope. But hey, this is _still_ not the worst thing she's ever caught me doing."

Pepper disentangles her hand from her mouth. "What on earth…" she breathes.

"Boy," Tony says, removing his helmet, "is _that_ ever the wrong question."

"Have you been there long?" Loki asks her, a bit taken aback. Surely, not so. He would have noticed her, would he not? She's no warrior, no threat, but nevertheless, has he truly grown so careless?

"Long _enough!_ " she cries, finding her voice.

Loki looks over at Tony for help, and finds him shaking his head. "Nope," Tony declares, over-cheerfully. "I'm not explaining this one. This is all you."

"But she's yours," Loki attempts.

With far too much enjoyment, Tony grins and says, "Your story. Your problem. Justice if there ever was any."

Pepper creeps into the room, but hesitantly, keeping the door open behind her just in case she needs to run. "How did you…almost with your bare hands, and the suit, and…that knife just appeared out of nowhere, and…" She takes a breath, and asks, "Who _are_ you?"

Since he's in his proper garb, and revealed as something other than mortal, Loki offers her a proper bow, prince to respected subject, and says, "Still whom I always was, Ms. Potts, only from further away than you may have believed me to be. Loki is my right name; my world is called Asgard. I am different from you, but no monster, and no more a stranger than I was yesterday, I hope."

If he looked closely, Loki might be able to see white all around her eyes, they're so wide. "You…you're not human?" she ventures.

"My people call themselves Aesir, and mine is a world of magic, as yours is a realm of science." He raises an upturned hand towards the knife fallen near her feet, and it flies back to him when he plucks at the magic it was created from. It meets his hand with a faint _thump_ of metal against skin before it fades away.

Pepper swallows, but makes no move to flee. Loki admires her composure in the face of the unknown and improbable; was it years of keeping Tony reined in that honed that skill, or did she find a use for a talent rightfully hers at the outset?

"Okay, I…okay." She takes a breath, holds it, lets it out again. "And…what's going on here?"

Loki dips the point of his spear to the ground and lets it rest there harmlessly. "I'm no threat to either of you. We're only playing, here."

Tony squawks, "Away put your weapon! I mean you no harm!" in a voice very much not his own.

"Shut up, Tony," Loki says automatically, and finds his words overlapping in ragged unison with Pepper's.

Their eyes meet, his lover and his handmaiden, and Loki sees his own exasperation in her expression. _Yes, that's our Tony,_ one of them thinks, and the other finishes the thought: _we want to hit him much of the time, but he's ours._

It breaks through the worst of her shock, something known for her to cling to amidst an unfamiliar ocean, and her body uncoils somewhat from its instinctive need to jump and run.

"It's all right," Loki promises her. "Your people and mine haven't had dealings within your memory, but we used to, once."

Pepper takes a minute to absorb this, and when Tony tries to interrupt her, Loki takes no little pleasure into rapping his armored shins with the spear, silencing him.

When she speaks again, she only impresses Loki further. "So is it _your_ planet we're flying off to, then?"

"Attagirl, Pep," Tony mutters, just loud enough to be heard, and she seems to take strength from him.

Loki laughs, a bit ruefully. "No," he says, still mourning the stillborn Way as new ways open before him. "You cannot get there from here thus, and…" He considers.

"We're trying something else," he says at last.

* * *

"Okay, maybe you pushed me this way," Tony says a few days later. "But I wouldn't have gone if I didn't want to."

Pepper has just marched into the room, dropped a stack of tablets on his lap, and pointed to them firmly, before assigning Loki to "don't let him leave until he's finished them. Stick them to his hands with magic, if you have to."

"Yay," Tony says dourly. "Paperwork."

But it is _Mars_ paperwork, and Midgard reasserts its hold on Tony from there, sending him traveling off to all ends of the world, and keeping him within laboratories, and putting him on television again.

Loki accepts this; he understands the demands of one's duties to one's world. And there is little he can do yet; Tony must ask questions and search out what they need.

While Tony is away, Loki returns to his own work. He slips back into the neon-lit whirlpool of Las Vegas as if his absence had been no different from any other disappearance, away to where no desert hemmed him in, voices sounded more like his own language, and it was not so accursed _hot_.

A hundred wailing voices beg him for miracles and chide him for going away, none surprised. He fixes the Tournament dragon again, whispering memories into its maw and telling it of the sun's own breath, shattering against the far northern sky. Sitting cross-legged beneath the false façade of Camelot's towers, the dragon's head lowered before him and all the entryways barred – lesson learned – he draws the heat and fury of battle-magic from his own soul and breathes it into the mechanical throat. Sparks gleam against the metal that lifts and coils within it, mirrored memories waiting to blaze to life.

When he invites the puppeteers to test his work, it roars out an inferno tinged with the greens and glowing blues of the northern aurora, rippling and twisting in waves more complex than the single torrent it had spewed before, until a hurrying actor had spilled his coffee across the dragon's jaw.

If they had told him this beforehand, he would have left them to make do. Loki quite understands its reluctance to perform, in the wake of such indignity, and scratches its forehead as if it were a restive horse.

He etches illusions into silver disks and invisibility into a cloak, and spends a pleasant day throwing intricately designed imaginary planets and suns into the air to teach them to fly. With magic crackling from his fingers and stars just out of his reach, he feels almost as if he were home.

Betwixt tasks – "projects", Tony would call them – he begins laying familiar spells into an array of bracelets, each different. One, already completed, he sets aside.

In a way, it's a relief to be back in the life he's built for himself, where strangers demand much of him, but few of them matter, and none as keenly as the man traveling the world so that his people may travel to another.

But not Asgard. Loki had spoken truly; they cannot fly there from here.

They return to scattershot text-messages and stolen conversations, tales of frustrations and ridiculous episodes. But now Tony says things like, "Dr. Conley was lecturing people about not getting their microbes all over space so we'll know real alien life when we find it, and she gave me the _weirdest_ look. I might have been laughing," and Loki can tell him about hexing an obnoxious guitarist's cell phone so that it played stupid noises loudly at random.

* * *

There's a strange silence to the house when he returns, some days after Tony has done the same, and Loki hesitates in the doorway, sensing the difference. Something is wrong.

Shedding the bag slung over his shoulder, freeing his hands, he curves his fingers around a knife not yet called into being, and drops into a cautious crouch, ready to leap. But no snarl or shouted challenge greets him, and no scent of Asgard in the air, only the determined cleanliness that the mindless robots leave in their wake as they patrol.

No. There. Sharp and stinging – the puddle drying across the house bar is not blood, but alcohol. Loki recognizes the smell of the golden, peaty liquid Tony prefers, and kneels to brush his fingers against the glass thrown to the ground beneath the stool. Sharp edges catch at his skin but fail to cut.

It's isolated – no other drink, no other damage, nothing else cast asunder. Tony was here, and drinking alone, and not happy.

Disturbed, Loki rises to his feet and calls the wolfthread to life. He's sensed little through it of late, relying less on the magical tracker and more on Tony's own account of himself, but when he listens to it, he finds the echoes of a dark, quiet sadness. This close to Tony, it's bright and vivid, a silver line in the air pointing to Loki's right, and sharply down, and staying there motionless.

" _Might I ask what that is?"_ a familiar, polite voice asks, and Loki winds the wolfthread away with a snap of his wrist.

"It lets me find him," Loki says, with no need to specify who he means, not to JARVIS. "It's harmless. Don't tell him, if you would."

He does not wait for JARVIS' reply, nor does the voice follow him as he descends the stairs.

Tony isn't hard to find. He's sitting with his back to the doorway, his wheeled chair kicked beyond reach of any desk or worktable. With his hands clasped and pressed to his forehead, bowed over his knees and very, very still, he looks almost as if he might be locked in prayer, or terror, or utter despair.

He looks like Loki imagines _cold_ might feel.

When Loki puts a hand on his shoulder, he barely stirs. His eyes open briefly, and his shoulders heave in a single sigh.

"Hi," he says leadenly, and nothing more.

"Well, if I'm not to keep secrets from you, don't imagine you can keep yours from me." His voice is more acrid than he'd meant it to be, and Loki tries very hard to gentle it. But he's frightened by Tony's evident fear, and his nature is to turn that into anger, to go after whatever threat menaces in the shadows and tear its throat open, dragging it bleeding and dying out into the light. "What's wrong?" he asks, nevertheless.

Tony's reply is no answer at all. "Something you said to Pepper. I remembered it, just as I – a little while back. That your people hadn't been here within our memories. And before, that the last time you looked was over half a millennium ago. And when you were shouting at me, you called me _mortal_. Had other things on my mind, at the time."

"And?" Loki asks, as his heart turns to stone. Not this. Not now. As if by their laughter, they could have staved off this shadow –

"…how long do you…do your people live?"

 _I would you had not asked that._ "We die by misadventure, just as yours do," says Loki, "and perhaps more so, warriors that we are."

Tony doesn't look up, only presses his hands against his forehead. Is there something caged within them? They're too tightly locked to tell. "That isn't what I asked. How long?"

"A very long time," Loki confesses reluctantly. "We can live for…perhaps some five thousand of your years." The dam on his words broken, he continues, anticipating Tony's next question, "I myself am around a thousand, or thereabouts."

His lover flinches away as if from a burning brand, but Loki's hand tightens on his shoulder. It's not where he wants to be, but Tony is held within some new agony, closed to him.

"So," he says, words dull, "what you're saying is, immortal."

 _By comparison?_ The truth is painful, why must Tony dig at it, and why can Loki not invent some comelier tale? But, instead: "Near enough."

Loki supposes the sound his friend makes is a laugh; he does not know what else it could be. There can be no fragment of bone in his throat, carelessly swallowed. It's a sound that Loki wants to run from, but where is there to run?

"Grab a chair," Tony says eventually. He still won't look up. "Something you should know."

Those are not good words. But Loki does as he was told, obeying this once.

With Loki seated beside him, struggling not to mimic his posture, Tony says flatly, "I haven't been feeling right. Not since Afghanistan, not since this." He doesn't have to gesture at the arc reactor. They both know. "I thought I'd adapt. Told myself I would. People function on one kidney all the time, so why couldn't I manage on what's left of my lungs? If I was tired, well, I'd been working hard. Under a lot of stress, up at all hours. Not a kid anymore, and drinking…I know about the drinking. But it helps. Helped. For a long time. But –"

He sighs, staring at nothing. "It's killing me, Loki."

Loki doesn't understand. "Drinking?"

"Ha. I wish. No. This." And now he does raise one hand – and there is something hidden in the other one – to thumb at the glowing arc reactor beneath his shirt. "There's an element in it. Palladium. Heavy metal. Toxic. And it's corroding. Every bit of energy the reactor puts out, a few atoms of palladium get shaken off. I've replaced the core, but it won't last…might buy me some time."

"It's poisoning you," Loki whispers, horrified. For an instant, he's back in that reeking cave, all his thoughts struck blank by the glowing eye buried in his kidnapped lover's chest. Intrusive and wrong and alien, far more alien than Loki is himself.

"Basically. Yeah. Those atoms don't have anywhere to go, so they stay in me. In my blood." Tony's other hand unfolds, revealing a device no bigger than a pen, nothing but a screen and a sharp point beside it.

The screen reads BLOOD TOXICITY: 19%.

"I don't know how long I have," Tony says, flat and cold. "But I'm probably dying. Knew I was going to. But –"

He doesn't get to finish his sentence; Loki has sprung to his feet and hauled him out of that chair and wrapped his lover in his arms as if he could guard him against a poison in his own blood, or hold him tight enough to keep death from finding him and taking him away. Loki's growling, for all the good it will do, snarling at nothing at all. At the fickle, _cruel_ universe; at the Norns at their looms; at the man who set out to kill his ward for another handful of gold; at the poisonous metal swirling in Tony's blood and through his ravaged heart.

The arc reactor blazes between them. It will burn its creator to ashes, the cruel, indifferent thing!

For the thousandth time and more, Loki curses that he is no healer. All his strength, all his magic, all that his birthright entitles him to, and he is powerless against these things too small to be seen. He shudders at the thought, and turns it into another snarl.

" _No_ ," Loki promises, all the authority he's ever wielded in that one small word. "You can't – I won't –"

Hypocrite that he is, all he wants to wail is _it's not fair! You were already mortal, and I only just found you._

 _I would have run from you, but I will not let you be taken. Not like this._

The hand cradling the back of Tony's skull curves into claws, and Tony lowers his head against Loki's shoulder as he promises, "I'm not a healer, but they exist, on my world. My people will come for me, and they can fix this, Tony; I will fight and curse them and tangle them up in their own shadows until they heal you. I swear it."

Tony's fist is clenched against Loki's side, with its tiny, heavy burden. "When?"

It's a question with no answer. "I don't know," Loki says, bitter truth.

"Right." He laughs, that choking sound. "Near-immortals probably don't move very quickly. Why would they? You've –" Loki flinches, and Tony changes his words. "They've got all the time in the world."

"But they will." They _must_ , by the customs Loki knows as surely as his own breath, and because _he needs them to_ , never more so than now. "Fight it, until then. Whatever you can do to keep it at bay, you will do it."

Tony snorts without humor. "You giving me orders now?"

"Yes. And you will obey them."

"Right." Finally, _finally,_ Tony moves under his own power, arms curving slowly around Loki's waist and resting there. "So what do we need?"

What has this plan always needed?

As if it could call him into being – names are powerful – Loki says, "Thor."

* * *

 _To be continued._


	13. Ocean's Eleven

ON WITH THE SHOW!

 **Chapter Thirteen: Ocean's Eleven**

"I hate this thing," Jane mutters, a well-worn complaint to no one in particular. She might as well be talking to the cloud chamber that, within the past twelve hours, she has hauled out of the desert, into the van, out of the van, across her makeshift laboratory floor, and onto this table.

Once she'd gotten some sleep, after all that, she'd realized that moving the van closer to the table rather than parking it in its regular corner _might_ have helped.

"I hate it. It's outdated, and broken, and there's a slow leak in it somewhere, and have you ever tried to keep something supercooled in the middle of the New Mexico desert?"

"Yeah," Darcy swings by to say. Jane looks up from her inspection of the welds along the edges of the box to glare at her. "I hauled dry ice. Just sayin'."

Sometimes Jane Foster wonders if she really needs an intern. Then she remembers that taking on at least _one_ student is one of the few things keeping her adjunct faculty status, and therefore her access to the library astrophysics databases, intact. And without Darcy around, she might end up talking to the walls, and that is not a good road.

Jane considers her options and decides that ignoring her is probably the safest bet. Despite this resolution, she asks, "Did you see where my night vision flashlight went? The one with the red lens?"

"Um…" Darcy looks at the starburst ceiling as if it might be there. Given that Jane has known Darcy to drip-dry her t-shirts from the light fixture – much to Jane's horror, and protests that they were drip-drying _onto my photographs and spectrum emissions charts, Darcy, take them outside!_ – it's not unlikely. "I think it's in the cereal cabinet."

Maybe the cloud chamber has cracked because it's made of parts from the world's last Radio Shack and a dismantled high school chemistry classroom. Or maybe because Jane occasionally has the urge to slam her head into it. "What's it doing there?"

"Migrating?"

Darcy should definitely go into politics. Actually no, that's a terrible idea and something Jane has been trying not to think about ever since this girl bounced into her less-than-half of a shared office and said she wanted to apply for the internship, and poli-sci is a science, right? It turns out that Darcy is an inveterate midnight snacker. "Do we have any raspberry cereal left?"

"Oh yeah, that reminds me, do you want me to go grocery shopping later? There's this real cute guy working the register –"

"Never mind."

Leaving the cloud chamber to its own malfunctioning devices, Jane extracts a stack of environment overview printouts from a teetering pile of similar printouts, hoping to at least get through the data from last month. Maybe if she waits here long enough, she'll spot some wisp of supercooled gas venturing out from the casing.

For a while, she loses herself in the data that's gradually, incrementally accumulating into her life's work. Her field lab settles into a peaceful silence only slightly broken by Darcy humming along to her iPod, and occasionally dancing around the tables burdened with the slumping stack of scientific papers she hasn't read yet, homemade particle detectors linked to a network of computers, and a very grouchy printer in need of ink.

The New Mexico sun glares through the windows, painting stripes of light across the concrete floor, and one sunbeam shatters in the heart of the prism Jane had hung there. The spectrum of the sun's rays scatters itself in a broken rainbow, and sometimes she imagines she can see the spectral lines of hydrogen and helium in its glancing colors.

It's an unconventional field lab – it used to be a gas station, before some optimist broke it down into an open-plan house, then found out no one in the area wanted it and no one anywhere else wanted to move to Puente Antiguo. But it's close to the blissfully dark skies of the New Mexico desert, and it's a wide-open space through which she can drag equipment between the computers and the van, and leave the back doors open in the sure and certain knowledge that nobody cares enough to steal any of it, and so it suits Jane Foster's needs.

There's internet, and there are stars, and there's a roof she can climb up onto and fall asleep on, on those nights when the mercury hasn't plunged too low in neck-snapping comeback from the dry heat of the day, so what does she care what her so-called colleagues think of her? There are answers out there, and she's going to find them.

Erik's here this year, off on sabbatical from wherever it is he's gotten himself transferred to now, and even if she's a little too big to call him Uncle Erik now, she still feels better with him around.

She's even getting used to Darcy, although whether that's a good thing or not, Jane really isn't sure sometimes.

It's a happy, peaceful afternoon.

A knock on the glass doors at her back almost breaks her concentration, but she puts a pin in her calculations and calls out absentmindedly, "Darcy, whoever's at the door, tell them we're not a coffee shop."

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Darcy put down the handful of false-color images of the night sky she's been taking down from the bulletin board, ready for a new set, and bounce away to see off whatever foolish roadtripper has stumbled over her lab this time.

"Hey," Darcy says cheerfully, as the distant sound of cars from outside gets just a little louder, "you look just like that guy on the TV."

"I have one of those faces," whoever's at the door says. Jane could swear she'd heard that voice somewhere before, but she's trying to remember a differential equation she should have memorized by now and can't afford to get distracted, or she'll lose it. "But according to Face _book_ , you are…not Jane Foster."

The sound of her name pulls her out of her math trance, and Jane puts down her pages, joining Darcy at the door where her intern is posing next to a smartphone screen. "It's _Doctor_ Foster, actually," she says absently, right before she notices what's on that screen, which is very, very wrong. "And why am I on Facebook? I am _not_ on Facebook."

"I made you a page," Darcy says cheerfully.

"Take it down!" Jane demands, teeth grinding with premature humiliation. She can only imagine…

Her ever-so-helpful intern pats her on the shoulder like it's no big deal, smiling. "Chill out, I blocked Don already."

Jane would like to sink into the floor and die, please. But it's concrete. "Don't pretend to be me on Facebook!" she grits out, briefly tempted to grab Darcy by the ear and shake her, screeching like a banshee. "Or I will hide your iPod."

"You wouldn't," Darcy says, as if Jane had offered to boil her hands in coffee dregs – horrified, and disbelieving, and mildly curious to see how that would actually work.

The man in the door clicks off his phone and puts it back in his pocket, the movement finally reminding Jane that he's there. She turns around ready to apologize for Darcy, and instead finds herself at a loss for words.

Her plans for the day ran along the lines of _fix the chamber, do math, realize there's nothing in the fridge, gather more particle data._ At no point had _Tony freakin' Stark turns up at my front door_ been in there.

The sunglasses do nothing to hide his identity, and not even Jane is so far out of the loop that she could mistake this man. Not when he's been all over the news for as long as Jane can remember, and anyway, everyone still talking to her emailed her _en masse_ with "MARS!" in the subject line. And he's hard to miss. Not Jane's type, but a handsome enough man, she supposes. He doesn't immediately catch the eye, but he holds it once he's got it. Like most people, he's taller than Jane herself, but not enough to tower over her. Dressed casually, in an AC/DC shirt that makes up for that by being covered in electrical engineering symbols and circuitry, partially highlighted by a faint circle of blue light beneath it. And he's probably the only person in the world that goatee actually works for, usually bracketing an impish grin.

…yep, that one, right there.

Jane suddenly realizes that she's gaping at him, right on the heels of bickering with her intern, and stomps hard on the blush before it makes it anywhere near her face. Damned if she'll be intimidated by this man just because he's famous and rich and driving…the stupidly nice car in the patchy shade of her lab. That's not going to hide it: it's vivid red and looks like it's flying even when it's parked. She doesn't have to apologize for anything, she's just surprised to find the world's least likely superhero standing at her door.

"…oh," she finally says. "Are you actually…"

"Yeah," Stark answers, before she can finish her question, which is probably a good thing. Or a very annoying one. "I actually am. Can I come in?"

"I…suppose?" Jane ventures. "I mean, sure. If you want." She looks past him suspiciously – no reporters following him? No showgirls hanging on his arm? No bodyguards, even? "Just you?"

He whips off the sunglasses, hooking them on the collar of his t-shirt just like any other guy, and grins like there's a joke. "Just me and my invisible friend."

"Cool," says Darcy, unstoppable. "I'm Darcy."

Stark shakes her hand like she's an actual human being, even winking at her, which only proves he's not as smart as he thinks he is.

* * *

"I like this place," Stark declares, walking through her lab like he owns it, which Jane is uncomfortably aware he could, if he wanted to. "Good light, _great_ toys. What model is this?"

"Celestron CGE Pro," she says, before he can change any of the telescope's settings or jiggle it around.

"1400, 356 millimeters, nice," he says.

"Yeah, it's – sorry, what are you doing here?" Jane can't help but blurt out.

He sticks his hands in his pockets, ludicrously at ease. It's probably an act, or maybe it's not. Maybe he's really that confident. In which case, Jane's going to hate this man. "I'm looking to recruit a…storm chaser, I guess. But they've got to have tracking equipment that can pinpoint bizarre astrophysical phenomena, an open mind, and – yeah, a van just like that one would be great."

"Whoa, you want to hire us?" Darcy jumps in – flatfooted, both feet. Jane bets if she looked, there would be a lot of pictures of Darcy jumping in puddles as a kid.

"Hey," she intervenes, before Darcy can sell her at auction for an iTunes gift card. "Darcy, why don't you go find Erik? I think he'd like to hear this."

"But I –"

"Darcy. Erik. Here. Now. Thank you."

Darcy rolls her eyes and leaves, and Jane finds herself wishing that Stark would do the same. He's just so…he shouldn't be here! He should be off having whatever fake life celebrities have when they're not posing for the cameras and having stupid manufactured relationship problems, in between getting involved in things they know nothing about.

Or punching out giant robots and spearheading missions to Mars, which is…okay, a _little_ off what most celebrities are famous for.

Someone from Stark Industries trying to hire her, which is indeed what this sounds like, she would have been fine with. Someone drawing a paycheck, who understood that you can't just wave your hands and have the world fall into place around you. It's the people who don't make the news who get that done. It's people like her, patiently accreting data around a theory that about forty-seven people in the world actually know anything about, but which, if they could figure it out, would tell them _so much_ about the universe.

Also, unsolicited job offers from one of the richest men in the world don't just _happen._

Jane Foster and Tony Stark don't even live on the same planet.

"How'd you find me?" she says instead of _what do you want and how can I make you leave?_

"I read your papers," he replies breezily, and just as she's about to call him out, adds, "I liked your arguments against the probability of the hydrogen line as a medium for interstellar signaling, but even if helium has more novelty value and thus be more likely to be noticed, I think the widespread availability of hydrogen still outweighs it. So to speak."

"Nobody read that. And that was years ago," Jane says automatically; she'd published that mostly to annoy her dissertation advisor, the second she was out from under his supervision. "Okay, so you got my name off my research, and Darcy put me on Facebook, I'm gonna kill her, and the university knows where I am, but still, what are you doing here?"

"I second that," Erik's voice backs her up; she turns around to see him coming around the corner and into the lab, towed by Darcy. "Jane, when did you invite Iron Man here?"

"I didn't!" she whispers at him, but it comes out more as a frustrated hiss.

"Dr. Erik Selvig, right?" Jane's just going to give up being surprised that Stark's done his research. "Hi. Now that I've met everyone, can we talk? I've got a problem to solve, and I'm finally calling in the experts, and you tw – three – seem ideal."

Jane looks over at Erik, who looks just as uneasy as she feels. But curiosity nips at her heels – what could Tony Stark, billionaire, superhero, kickstarter of space programs, possibly want with her little team?

Tentatively, she says, "I suppose," and waves at the little knot of yellow chairs by the door. Miraculously, none of them have shoes on them. "Have a seat? I'm sure there's coffee somewhere…"

There had _better_ be…

She makes it all the way to the kitchen before realizing Stark has followed her, uninvited. "Maybe not coffee. Tell you why in a few minutes." If he opens any of these cabinets, she's going to die of shame…no, no she's not, they're _her_ cabinets and they'll be in whatever condition she wants them to be. "Bet you a dollar there's cocoa around here somewhere."

"No bet," Jane grumbles. Between her and Darcy and the cool night air? Of course there is.

Much to her surprise, Stark helps make it, hands moving quickly and surely but staying out of her way, since she knows where things are and he doesn't. She finds the red-lens flashlight, too.

Much _more_ to her surprise, he insists on pouring five mugs' worth. "Humor me," he says breezily, hooking his fingers through the handles of three of them. "I might want seconds."

Okay, this guy is weird, but whatever. Somehow they make it back into the main workroom without major catastrophes or hot cocoa poured over anyone's smug famous face. Five mugs, steaming in the early summer sun and the feeble indoor air conditioning, get set down on the little table Erik hurriedly drags over, and a strange little confab gets underway.

"Are you really building a spaceship to go to Mars?" Darcy ambushes Stark the second he sits down. "That is pretty cool. D'you think you'll find Martians?"

Jane chalks up another tally mark in the _Ways to Be Embarrassed by Darcy Lewis_ category and keeps mum while Stark explains that if there's any life left on Mars, it's bacterial. "But maybe in the caves," he adds, lounging in one of the cream chairs like he belongs here and Jane's team isn't sitting across from him staring. "Have to go and look to be sure. Of course, that's a little harder for you to do, Dr. Foster. Your work has to come to you – so why New Mexico?"

For some reason, when she talks about her work, she always gets defensive. Maybe because it sounds like fringe science, or science fiction, and she wishes people would take it seriously. She wants to pound it into them sometimes: _this is real!_

She doesn't let him spring the question on her, but she doesn't whip out _Einstein-Rosen bridge_ just yet, either. "I'm tracking atmospheric anomalies, trying to pin down the effects of radiation from space on our atmosphere, and learning about the radiation from that," she says. "Like footprints. Darcy calls it storm chasing too –"

"We drive around at night looking for lights in the sky. I have so many UFO t-shirts," Darcy chips in proudly.

"– but ultimately, I'm trying to detect cosmic rays interacting with and decaying in the atmosphere. And this is a low human-impact area, with a dark sky." Every streetlight, every bulletin board, every car headlight, every illuminated sign washes another star from the visible sky. Human civilization has brought their own stars down to Earth and in doing so, visual astronomers and lovers of the night sky mourn, have hidden away the real ones.

Jane pities the people who have never seen a truly dark sky. Poor people, who have never looked up and seen all of them bright stars, who have never wondered about what secrets those stars hold. Humans are so _small_ down here!

But humans can work to understand, and that makes humans mighty.

Stark takes a sip from his cocoa and shrugs, almost dismissively. "But there are other locations. Less than there were, I know, but why this one?"

Irritation prickles at her, and Jane snaps out her first, sarcastic, but true response. "This is the one I can afford and can get to."

Something must ring false about it, because while he chatted with Darcy, Stark had been sitting back in the chair, relaxed with his drink cupped in both hands against his chest, partially blotting out that faint circle of light beneath. But now he leans forward, propping his elbows on his knees, and says, "Nah. I mean, sure, maybe, but no other reason? Just the big sky?"

What the hell is he getting at? Or does he just take weekends off to find random people to baffle? (It's Tuesday.) Who does this man think he is, coming into her home – she may not live here year-round, but she loves this place she found and fixed up and made her own – and confronting her about the work she's devoted her life to?

What does he care?

What kind of _Twilight Zone_ day is this, anyway?

Out of the corner of her eye, Jane sees Erik looking at her worriedly, and for him, she keeps her voice steady and says, "Why do you ask?"

Stark looks her in the eye and says, "Call it a hunch. Call it a job interview, if you like, for something that I can't just come straight out and offer. And believe me, someone, somewhere, is laughing his head off at me right now. I know it seems like a strange question, but whatever your answer, I promise I won't laugh." He smiles – it's not quite a smirk, but that air of casual arrogance that seems to infuse him taints it, and Jane wonders if he's just as guarded with her and her team as she is with him. "And I don't do the academia thing. I'm not going to publish it out from under you. It's all your work, it's all you. I keep saying this."

Curiosity is going to get her, every single time. And didn't it, already?

Hey, maybe if she freaks him out, he'll go away and today will make sense again.

"Do you know what the Wow! Signal was?" she says, carefully.

His eyebrows go up. "I know about it. We don't know what it was. Yet."

Jane is…reluctantly impressed. "Huh," she says aloud. "Right answer."

"Uh, poli-sci major over here," Darcy says, over to her left, beyond Erik. "The what signal?"

"No, the Wow…"

Darcy makes a sarcastic face at her, and Jane rolls her eyes. She'd fallen for that one well and good.

"It was in the 1970s," Erik fills Darcy in. "A radio telescope picked up a sudden surge, like a signal. Just one pulse, for just over a minute, and then they lost it. The Earth turned away, and the telescope couldn't follow. At its peak it was thirty times stronger than anything else the telescope had ever found – the man who spotted it wrote 'Wow!' on the printout."

Leave it to Darcy to find another puddle. "Aliens pinged us?" Splash.

Erik sighs. "We don't know. The next day, the astronomers waited for it to recur, but it never did. People have been listening to Sagittarius ever since, but… There wasn't any information, no message. It was like someone turned on a giant flashlight, and then switched it off again."

"Aliens pinged us!" Darcy repeats, grinning. Splash.

Stark chuckles, despite his promise not to laugh. Jane won't forget that. "Okay, anything that has the Wow! Signal as background, I'm gonna have to hear the story of."

And what is the worst that can happen, anyway? He thinks she's a kook? Join the club, there may actually be shirts. He leaves and forgets she ever existed? Jane Foster can live with that. She'll be embarrassed, and then she'll get over it. Again.

Because she's not crazy. And she wasn't wrong.

She puts her rain boots on, and jumps.

"August 23, 2002," she says firmly. "3:26 AM. And 19 seconds. I was a graduate student, working at the VLA –"

"That's the Very Large Array, Darcy," Erik says, _sotto voce_. "It's a radio telescope nearby."

"Like the Wow! one?"

"– and my supervisor had me stuck on the graveyard shift." That frenzied, sleepless, punishing graduate work, the simplicity and straightforwardness of the classroom a distant memory. That was when you found out if you really wanted your whole life to be astrophysics, or if you just liked reading about it and could do some math when pressed. "Program someone else's search parameters, listen to the computer crunch, try to stay warm, listen to the data come humming in, watch it scroll by. But I didn't care," Jane adds hurriedly. "It was what I've always wanted to do. Not just see the universe, but decode it."

Stark nods, attention fixed on her, and she decides that if she's really going to tell him the story she doesn't tell, she's going to talk to him like he's just any other guy. She can do that. She just has to remember that he doesn't intimidate her.

And really, he's not trying very hard to.

"Anyway, we were between runs, and I was reorienting the array into its next position. Slewing the dishes around was half of what I did, for most of my time there. Pointing the array at things. But," and the memory still makes her heart jump, remembering the numbers spiking, the oscillating line like a seismograph or a heartbeat soaring and trembling, "between points, this _burst_ of a signal came through. The data jumped all over the place, like it was picking up something intense, or close, or both, even!"

She hears her own voice soaring like that graph, feels herself light up – the _wonder_ of it! Back then, she'd clapped her hands over her mouth like her heart was going to escape through it, as if she could scream her soul out in unabashed, unhesitant delight to that otherwise empty room. Like she could sing out her joy to the deaf computers that listened only to great things out there, not little astronomers down in their heart, so scared, and so amazed, and so very, very excited.

"It was a huge surge, just for a few seconds. And then it stopped. Stone dead. Like someone had hooked up a pulse monitor to a firework show, and set it off all at once, and then unplugged it. Show over. Go home."

Darcy's staring at her, open-mouthed. "How, in months of sitting around in the desert at night, did you never tell me this story? I thought I'd heard all your sciency stories. What did you _do?_ "

Jane comes out of her memories just enough to see Stark smile like something's dawned on him. "August 23rd," he says, "2002. Hello."

And Erik's scowling, although not really at her. "I must be more out of the loop than I thought. I never heard about that."

She shakes her head, because this is why she doesn't tell this story, even to a lifelong friend. "You wouldn't have. I grabbed the printout, made something like sixteen copies of the computer logs, and got everyone out of bed." She'd done everything but pull the fire alarm. "Called up my supervisor, who also happened to be the director."

Jane laughs, bitterly. "That was _not_ my best career move. But I was sure, I was _so_ sure I'd just seen the next Wow! Signal. I thought we'd finally heard something. I cancelled the scheduled run – which did not make me popular with Effelsberg – and got everything turned back around again, tried to triangulate on where it had come from. Some weird weather had rolled in, but that shouldn't have made any difference to the array. Not to a radio telescope."

The disappointment is still a bad taste in her mouth, like the cocoa has gone sour as it cools, and she sets her mug back on the empty table. "But I couldn't find it again. Just that burst, then nothing. An anomaly."

"And then?" Stark urges her on, setting his own mug down alongside hers and leaning forward, waiting for the end of the story.

"Oh, about what you'd expect. All of us grad students freaked out for the next twenty-four hours, waiting for that point in the sky to come back around. Maybe it'd come to us, even if we couldn't get the dishes to find it. And then…nothing. Not so much as a blip. Background radiation."

She's never wanted to cry as much as she did then, listening to that static. Not the day her dad died. Not when Don looked at her and said _I'm done_. Not when she'd been turned down for even tenure- _track._

"No one else could confirm it, because no one else had heard it. Not Arecibo. Not Green Bank. Not Lovell. Nobody. I was…well. You can imagine."

Stark's mouth twists behind the goatee, just a bit, and she wonders what equivalent humiliation he thinks he's got to top hers.

"They said I'd made a fuss over nothing. That I'd gotten the programming wrong and swept it past a radio station or something. Someone –" _Ryan_ , she'd wanted to disembowel the guy with a pen, "filked the signal and went around singing it, strumming his stupid guitar. Music from the little green men. And that only made my supervisor madder. At me. He hated the SETI program, or anyone talking about it."

Beside her: "Search for Extraterrestrial –"

"Yeah, I heard ET in there."

Jane tries to ignore the background noise. "He called it a waste of time for concussed dreamers, end quote. The kind of man who'd put zeroes into the Drake Equation."

"Um…"

"A best-guess equation, for how many civilizations there might be in the galaxy. One zero, and everything cancels."

"So, a jerk."

Almost done, and then Stark can brush her off like everyone else does and leave, back to his shiny Mars program and his shiny life. "Ultimately, they decided it was too loud. It had to be backscatter off a satellite, or some bit of space debris. Gibberish. Garbage. And they buried it."

But somehow, Stark seems to be taking her seriously. "But not you," he anticipates.

Jane will not be embarrassed about that, not with her whole life and her career around her, in the warmth and familiar welcome of her own lab.

"No," she says determinedly. _E pur si muove; and yet, it moves!_ She'd spray-painted that onto her bedroom wall, and to hell with the lost deposit and that Galileo probably never actually said it. "I was there. Whatever it was, I saw it. It wasn't backscatter, and it wasn't interference. I could never find it again, so it's not good science. But around here, maybe not New Mexico but the Southwest, with that big sky – that's where I'm going to keep looking."

She's expecting mockery or sarcasm, rolling eyes and a sigh, but she's pleasantly surprised, because Stark is grinning like a man who's found a hundred bucks in his jacket pocket. "You need a second shot," he says. "Perfect. I can get you one. Just one more thing," he adds. "Indulge me a moment. I'm going to ask a silly question."

"Okay…" What _is_ he playing at, and what the hell does he mean, he can get her a second chance?

"How many people in this room?"

That was…not the question Jane was expecting. "Four," she says, completely baffled.

"Five," he answers, snap-quick.

By now, she's so far out at sea all she can do is tread water and hope it decides to wash her back towards somewhere she can get one foot to the ground. Jane looks around, craning over her shoulder to see if someone else has come in while she was telling her story. But the room behind her is empty of people, only her friends on her left and her bizarre visitor across from her. Maybe someone's snuck in the back? They don't lock the doors except at night, when they're out with the van.

But here in this room – "Myself. Erik. Darcy. You."

There's a joke here, Jane can see it in Stark's eyes as he says, "And how many cups?"

Jane looks down at the little table, where Erik and Darcy have also placed their mugs. She points, counting them off. "One. Two. Three. Four."

Hang on a second.

He'd poured –

"Five."

The voice is smooth and low, with a rich, clear British accent; it's completely unfamiliar, very close, and there's _nobody there._

The missing cup reappears on the table as if someone had set it down, the _click_ of ceramic against Formica as loud as a handclap. It's empty.

"What the –" the three of them blurt out almost in unison, and Jane looks up as a shadow falls across the glass window. The air shimmers like heat over the road, and darkens, taking form.

Less than a second after the mug had hit the table, someone else has phased into view out of nowhere, not like a chameleon emerging from the background, but near-instantly, like Bilbo taking off the One Ring.

The _fifth_ person in the room is slender, and elegant, all pale skin and dark hair and keen eyes. His face is almost closer to geometry than biology, angular and harsh but not unhandsome – striking, sure, but in the same way flint is striking. Some instinct deep inside her notes that there's an edge of cruelty in his smile, as he watches Darcy yelp, and Erik recoil with a sharp indrawn breath, and Jane as she just stares, mouth open.

He's dressed more formally than Stark is, somehow conspiring to stay cool – there's nothing like a flush on those high cheekbones – even in a black button-up shirt and slim dark pants, like a living shadow in the midst of her sunlit workshop. With long hair combed back sharply from his youngish face, plus the single stud earring in his right ear, he should look like a pretentious student, one of the endless undergraduates who earnestly debate philosophy and the meaninglessness of the mundane world and then get blind drunk on the weekends. It should make him look ridiculous, coldly pretty man that he is.

He doesn't. It doesn't.

Jane Foster has walked back to crappy student housing in the small hours of the morning with her arms full of books and her shoulder bag weighed down with more of them, one finger in the keyring of her pepper spray, trying to stay alert even as her body begged for sleep. She's navigated through department meetings as cutthroat as any pirate ship. She's kept her feet on the floor through conferences that all the guys around her were treating as a vacation from restraint and decency, and refused to band together with the other women scattered around, because they shouldn't need to form a _herd_ to feel safe.

She knows a predator when she sees one, and this man's cool green eyes and the easy way he moves trip plenty of sirens in her instincts.

That, and the _seamless_ way he'd appeared out of nowhere, which is…not possible.

"You…" Jane chokes out, unable to stop staring. "How did you…who…"

Across from her, sprawled in his chair, Stark grins up at the man, who leans back against the glass, arms folded, and smiles tolerantly down at him in return.

"Dr. Jane Foster," Stark says, trying for casual but the laughter bubbling in his voice unmistakable, "meet your Wow! Signal."

* * *

"What," Jane says flatly, when she's remembered how words go. "The hell."

Stark, still grinning insufferably, slaps a hand against the chair next to him like he's calling a reluctant cat. "C'mon, man," he says, obviously not to her. "At least try it my way for once."

"They will not believe me," his friend answers, quite matter-of-fact – and he's damn right, too!

"Give 'em a chance. They might surprise you. I did, didn't I?"

"That was so cool, how did you do that?" Darcy gasps, hanging on tight to her own hands as if she might start applauding the show being put on for their benefit. "That was like magic!"

Something like a smile curves the corner of the newcomer's mouth as he slips into the last chair. The chairs are a size and height that suits Jane, and this man must be at least a head and a half taller than her, long limbs and broader shoulders than she'd first thought, but he doesn't lose his balance for a second. It's a perfectly smooth motion, catlike and sleek. "I think," he says in reply, "you would call that a good start."

Or maybe it's not to Darcy at all, because Stark takes that up without missing a beat. "Told you so. Right to it. Kind of pressed for time, remember –"

The strange man goes still, and says only, "I remember."

Jane actually snaps her fingers impatiently, even as she feels like she's waving them under the nose of something with big, quick teeth. "Hey. Hang on. Who the hell are you and what are you doing in my lab?"

"See how simple it is, to say something true and have it disbelieved?" the dark-haired man says, still to Stark, who rolls his eyes extravagantly and mutters something like _yeah, yeah, yeah_ without venom.

A flicker of attention over Darcy and Erik – one leaning forward all but licking her lips, the other drawn back in cautious alarm, and he settles his gaze on Jane, addressing her as the leader without hesitation.

"My name is Loki," he says, the strange name easy on his tongue. "And what you saw that night was me."

"Okay. No," is all Jane can manage, anger flickering like the coals of a barbecue under that ringing, deafening surprise. "That's not funny."

He doesn't shrug, nor does he look away, not even for an instant, watching her with that predatory gaze. _Assessing_ her. "I was cast down from my world to yours, and left to find my own way. For there are worlds – my people call them Realms – beyond your own, but you knew that already, did you not?"

 _This is not funny!_ is the only sentence Jane can put together for a moment. This is some stupid joke, knocked together by some colleague laughing behind his hand at her, or someone delusional who's latched onto too much science fiction and dreamed up a story to make himself feel important. It doesn't merely defy belief to imagine that this coldly striking man is an alien from another world – this _offends_ it.

Terrible anger boils up in her throat like poisoned cocoa, and she suddenly, violently _hates_ whoever thinks this is funny, and Stark still sitting there grinning. She'd told him something she doesn't share, because she thought for a moment he might be more than a vain attention-getter, that he might actually be interested. And instead he invited his crazy pretty friend in to track mud all over the guiding star cradled in her chest.

"You do not believe," that crazy pretty friend says, with the trace of a laugh. "That's good. You are a scientist of Midgard, and you do not believe what you have not seen." Beside him, Stark raises his hand like someone's called his name and he's marking himself present. "But you, Dr. Foster, have seen the light from the Bifrost –"

"The what?" Darcy pipes up. When Jane glances over at her, just a quick peek, her eyes are wide and wondering. In passing, she notes that Erik has pushed himself back into his chair as far as he can go, like he wants to take three large steps backwards from something heavy on the color-coded wires that's ticking ominously. His face is pale.

Strange, that, but she'll worry about it later, once she's sent this _crackpot_ packing with a flea in his ear.

But…Loki…acknowledges Darcy with a glance and says, "The road between worlds. My people's pathway from one Realm to another. Imagine you could ride on a beam of light…"

He turns a hand up, and Jane's mouth falls open again as a ball of light materializes in it, darkening and gaining texture until he's cradling a compact landscape of no world she's ever seen, veiled with shifting clouds as it floats above his palm. As if this were a totally everyday bit of impossible, he snaps his fingers beneath it and gestures at Darcy, and instantly, a second glowing ball springs to life before her.

It resolves into a globe of the Earth, spinning very slightly as it hovers unsupported in midair.

As Jane's gaze seesaws between that little ghost of her world and the man with an alien one in his hand, she sees the delighted grin on Stark's face, and the way he looks over at his friend. "My god, Loki," he mutters, "that does not get old."

"How did you –" Jane asks again, as impossibilities pile up.

Both men – or whatever Loki is – chorus, "Magic," and smirk at each other.

"The Bifrost is a conduit," Loki resumes, "that crosses worlds." A beam of light springs from the world in his palm, darting out to meet the floating Earth like a laser. Iridescent colors ripple through it for a heartbeat, and then the light fades.

But it's etched across Jane's irises like a scratch through her dust glasses, ineradicable. Not possible. Not here and now. Not yet. It's an unproven theory, a mathematical possibility, and yet it's the perfect storm Jane is out here chasing in the first place.

But what if –

If this is – if _he_ is – for real…

Can't she pretend, for one minute? Can't she indulge, just for a little while, and imagine?

 _God,_ could it be possible that there's an alien civilization out there that can create – "An Einstein-Rosen bridge," she blurts out.

Could it be possible that one of them might be here, talking to humans through shadow puppets?

"A rainbow bridge," Loki corrects her. He closes his hand, and both worlds fade. "That's what you saw."

Eyes shining as if the glowing Earth was still there, Darcy waves her hand through where it was and finds nothing. "A wormhole!" she says – however would Jane explain things to irrepressible poli-sci majors, without science fiction? "So you're an alien?"

"He's a god."

Erik sounds – what? Flat and declarative, on the surface, but there are deep waters under there, and Jane can almost hear the riptide waiting to tug him under. There's fear down there. There's dread.

Also, _what?_

All eyes turn to Erik as he licks his lips and shifts uncomfortably; she can't blame him, under the stare Loki has turned on him, as intense and focused as a highly collimated laser. Jane doesn't know him yet, and she doesn't know how to read him, but that look goes beyond interest. It's _hunger_ , plain and clear.

More importantly, Jane can't believe what she just heard, and from Erik, of all people! Dr. Erik Selvig, who's been at the head of his rarified field for most of his career, whom she knows has contacts in every lab and science agency, even in ones he's not allowed to talk about.

"He's something, all right," Stark says wryly, and on top of everything else, Jane starts wondering how they both came to be here, the superhero-billionaire-industrialist-celebrity and the…whatever Loki is. They know each other well – _my invisible friend,_ Stark had said; the way they'd staged that introduction; the easy way Loki turned away to speak to Stark first – but how? And why?

Erik's voice shakes, just a little bit. "And not a particularly nice one, either, even for one of _them._ "

"Oh," Loki says, in resignation and disgust. "Someone knows stories. Or believes he does."

"The old gods of myth and fable. The Viking legends," Erik throws back at him. "I grew up with them."

Darcy says, "Huh. Beings from another world, visiting Earth, with some neat tricks like that –" She tips an imaginary hat at Loki, who only has eyes for Erik. "Might be seen as gods, sure."

Erik doesn't seem to hear her. "And this one – chaos," he growls. "Destruction. Deception. Madness. Death. Jane, whoever or whatever this is, you don't want anything to do with him."

Stark opens his mouth, but a single gesture from Loki cuts him off – now _that_ was interesting, Loki hadn't even looked at him. Also, wow, someone _exists_ with the power to shut up Tony Stark _._

"We are…I am…not what you think you know," Loki says. His voice is conciliatory and soothing, his hands open, but he's still fixed on Erik like a compass finding north. "They're only stories. Not true. You know our names, and a few words of a few tales are not all wrong, here and there, but they have been distorted and mistranslated and forgotten. Rumors and lies become legends. And you dare to think you know who I am."

Erik shakes his head, wary. "Alien or god or man with a tall tale, you told me everything I needed to know with the name you're using. The details vary, but the core of a story doesn't change."

"Doesn't it?" Loki's fingers curve into claws, just for an instant, and Stark sets a hand on his shoulder as if calling him back.

"Well then," he says, leaning back into the chair with a shake of his head, "a story, then. One you will have heard, and that I am tired of hearing the wrong of, and you may judge for yourself how truth distorts on other tongues."

* * *

Loki holds his hands up before him, one over the other, palms facing each other. He flips them over in a single quick movement, and Jane's lab, Puente Antiguo, the New Mexico sun all disappear.

They're replaced by a spacious, ornate room with a high ceiling and curving walls, gleaming as if plated with gold, or the darker tinge of pure, refined bronze. Doors that must stand twenty feet tall face off against a picture window that looks out onto an alien city, tall spires and isolated enclaves and hovering buildings – are they buildings? – seamlessly integrated with lush trees and sharp cliffs and pouring water. Jane's first thought is _Rivendell,_ if Rivendell had been built by a steampunk engineer with an unlimited budget, delusions of grandeur, and no requirement to comply with the laws of physics.

Within the room the five of them are suddenly ensconced in, something halfway between a statue and a living tree adorns a pedestal set in front of the window. It's almost a two-story room, or a small amphitheater, with tiered steps leading down to that incredible view. Their garage-sale chairs have turned to flowing benches – but they haven't, Jane realizes, hands groping blindly. She can still feel battered fabric, and the ground beneath her foot is the familiar texture of poured concrete, grinding away at the rubber sole of her shoe.

"Only an illusion, I fear," Loki says, and she looks over to find him watching her. "But it is an image of Asgard. My home. Or a room of it, at least, centuries ago."

Jane nods, for lack of a better option, still trying to absorb that he's turned her lab into a holodeck with nothing more than a wave of his hands. Magic, he and Stark had said, but surely not, surely only technology indistinguishable…but so quick, and so seamless! Beside her, Erik seems frozen to his third of the bench they all seem to be sitting at; beyond him, Darcy says, "Wow! Can I –" and starts to get up.

She promptly slams her elbow into an invisible desk, and sits back down again with a muttered, "Right. Lab's still here."

"Stay. We will not be here for long," Loki assures her. "The circumstances do not matter, for the moment, but suffice to say that I am a prince of Asgard –"

The doors swing open, and two people enter. Well, a bearded man in ornate armor, his face unclear, enters, dragging a dark-haired teenage boy along by one sleeve as he tries to pull away.

"– and my father and I, not for the first time, and not for the last," Loki says dryly, "have quarreled."

"That's you?" asks Stark, grinning widely. His hand is still on Loki's shoulder. "Aww."

That's not the word that springs to Jane's mind, as the boy and the man shout at each other. It's like listening to a conversation in the distance in another language, the words indistinguishable but the tone clear.

She has no idea what they're arguing about, but the boy is clearly spitting mad, so enraged that Jane can hear him tripping over his incomprehensible words, and the man doesn't want to hear any of it.

After a heated, rapid, harsh-voiced minute, the boy wrenches himself free, slaps his father's hand away with something that sounds like a curse, or perhaps _I hate you_ , and storms back out of the room.

"I suppose you would say that I ran away," says Loki, reversing his hands again, and the golden-bronze room dissolves, replaced by an apparently endless vista of rolling grasslands, interrupted by outcroppings of stone. Two suns grace the sky, massive golden primary and tiny blue-white companion, and the grass is tinged with red undertones. When the wind blows across it, entire swaths flash between multihued green and dark red, and the creatures riding those winds are not birds.

The garage-sale chairs, themselves again, look somewhat out of place, and Jane tries to remember that this is a movie, or a holodeck – not real.

Amazing, incredible, beyond what they have here on Earth – but not beyond aliens who travel by Einstein-Rosen bridge! – but only an image.

"For perhaps two years, as you would count it, I wandered the Realms. No, not the same at all," he adds, in response to some question of Stark's, too quiet for Jane to hear. "I was exploring of my own free will, free to travel wherever I wished. Even to return whenever I desired, if I could face the quarrel that awaited me there."

"After years?" Darcy protests. "Must have been a hell of an argument."

"My people don't age as you do. Not as quickly. We have time you do not."

Sure enough, one of the rocks is actually the same slender boy, sitting at the peak of the outcropping and looking out over the plains, slightly longer hair waving in the breeze. He's facing away from them, so Jane can't see his expression, but he's got his chin propped against one hand like a bored teenager at a computer, shoulders slumped.

Loki says, "In time I thought to settle the argument with a gift, to show that I no longer wished to fight but to put the quarrel behind us, and I heard a rumor of a most unusual animal, one whom no trapper could take. Look."

Jane looks obediently – she could no more stop looking than fly. And despite herself, she's caught, remembering more than a few times she'd stomped out of her mother's house, jumping the bus into the city and distracting herself in bookstores and on bridges.

So much for _we'll never understand the aliens._ So much for _we'll have to communicate in mathematics._

She catches herself believing, and makes a note to scold herself for it.

Later. After the herd of beautiful horses that has just meandered into view from out of the rolling plains – from all appearances, behind Stark and Loki, where the windows and the town should be – has gone on its way. Because like most little girls, no matter how sciency, Jane Foster had been in love with horses for a couple of years.

Any girl who tells you she wasn't is lying, or misremembers.

Erik is the one to spot the outlier, probably because Erik is the one who knows what he's looking for. "Sleipnir," he says, pointing to a grey colt. It's barely visible, shielded by the bulk of a dappled mare that might be its dam. Jane has to bend down to see it – she spots Darcy doing the same thing, hears her intern saying "Cuuuute…" in a voice so low she may not be aware she's speaking aloud – and then has to blink and rub at her eyes. She's seeing double.

"Odin's eight-legged steed," Erik adds – not a trick of the light or twins, then!

"My father's warhorse, yes," says Loki, with a bit of a smile. "But that was later. I had to catch him, first, and the wild horses of Alfheim are clever and distrustful. As intelligent as your great apes, if I understand all I've read."

"Sounds spidery," is Stark's comment, and Jane looks up just in time to see Loki scowl at him.

"Sleipnir is beautiful," the…alien prince…objects, pronouncing both vowels, _ay-ee_ , rather than the _ay_ Erik had used, and Stark raises a hand in surrender with a murmur of "All right."

Beyond the herd of horses, the teenage boy sits up alertly, watching them too. Step by cautious step, he begins to descend the rock, flickering through the same invisibility the grown man had emerged from in Jane's own lab, minutes ago and years – centuries, had he said? – later. When he reaches the ground, still unnoticed by the grazing horses, Jane can clearly see his smile.

And then his image blurs, and is replaced by a small white mare.

"I have a gift for shapeshifting," Loki explains, as the white mare drifts towards the herd. Some of them whinny at her, shying away, and the black stallion patrolling around them races over to defend his mates. Finding only a small and unguarded female, he sniffs at her curiously, rearing and snorting, _very_ sharp hooves flying, before nipping at her flank. Quite meekly, the little mare blends into the rest of the herd, no different from the rest.

"And for a while, I traveled with them, letting the colt learn my scent and grow accustomed to my presence. Once he grew old enough to leave his dam, and he'd grown to trust me –"

Loki flips his hands for a third time, but instead of reverting back to bronze-golden Asgard, the scene shifts to a thin forest – Jane doesn't know trees, but they're nothing she'd expect to see in any American greenbelt. In the distance, the horses are dozing among them, heads down, or scratching themselves against the bark, or nibbling at the leaves.

The white mare, on the other hand, has drifted away from the group, nudging the young grey horse beside her and towards where Loki's telling his story. So his audience can see the moment when white horse becomes triumphantly grinning teenage boy, pressed close to Sleipnir's complexly muscled shoulder, one hand tangled in his mane. The eight-legged horse – it's not spidery at all, only intricate – noses at him, whickering uncertainly, and the boy chirrups and clucks back to him, reassuring.

"You stole him," Stark laughs. He's pushed his chair a little closer to Loki's, and now he elbows his friend cheerfully enough. "You're shameless."

"I caught the finest horse in nine realms when no one else could, and brought him back home to Asgard," Loki corrects him proudly. With a wave of his hands, the forest becomes a stable yard that looks the way Jane imagines Earth stables look, at least the ones she remembers from her childhood horse dreams.

Teenage Loki has the eight-legged horse on a halter and a lead, clearly teaching him, and the adult Loki's next words confirm it. "My father was pleased with his gift, and we made peace for the moment. He asked me to train Sleipnir, and I was happy to do so, for a time."

A new figure appears, a teenage boy with sandy hair and a thin sword at his hip, hanging on the gate and watching. "One of my brother's friends laughed that Sleipnir followed me around _as if I were his mother_ –" Loki darts a quick glare at Erik. "– and with few allies at court, and my ability to shapeshift no great secret, it was not long before cruel tongues took up the jest. It gained a life of its own, and the tale grew to be that Sleipnir was my child in truth, deny it as I would."

Loki claps his hands together once, and stable, horse, arguing teenage boys, and alien world all disappear, letting the golden New Mexico sunlight back in through the windows of Jane's laboratory home. Outside, Puente Antiguo goes about its leisurely, sunbaked business as if nothing had changed, as if there wasn't an alien illusionist who claims to be the prince of a race of gods sitting right here, looking mildly peeved and appropriating Stark's half-empty mug of cocoa. "I do not know where your people got the rest of your story," he says around it. "But tell me then, Dr. Selvig, how true the core of your tale is, and understand that it is one of the _truer_ ones your people tell."

Darcy applauds and says, "Bravo! Do it again!" and Erik frowns.

* * *

"Okay," Jane says a little later, once they've had time to absorb that. Not enough time, of course. A year or so would be nice. "Setting all that aside, even if I believed that you are who and…what you say you are…why are you here? Not on Earth. Here. In my lab. Stark said something about replicating my data. What did you mean, a second chance?"

Her visitors glance at each other, and Loki says, "I said I am a prince of Asgard. The younger of a pair." He hesitates, and adds, "My brother is coming here, by the same road I did. I want you to find him, and bring him to us."

Princes from alien planets, fine, whatever – what Jane hears is that _second chance_. Another Einstein-Rosen bridge. Confirmation.

"Like I said," Stark says, "I'm looking for storm chasers. Just let me know what you need and it's yours – you know there's like five newer generations of particle detectors after that cloud chamber, right?"

"They're expensive," Jane says on autopilot, and remembers who she's talking to.

Erik challenges, "Why do you need us? Can't you just go to him? Oh wait. You said _cast down._ You're in trouble again, aren't you?"

"Erik, my man, way to teeth!" Darcy says like she's watching two students snap at each other over a cafeteria table.

Loki ignores her, so he's at least functionally intelligent. "Unjustly so and without cause. But no matter. You may run whatever scans you like on the Bifrost; only find my brother when he arrives here. He will not understand this world. I didn't. He will need a guide, or I cannot answer for the safety of anyone nearby."

"Whoa," Darcy interrupts. "That's scary-sounding. Is he dangerous, your brother? I assume he's got a name."

"Thor," Loki answers, and Erik makes a choking noise that might be surprise, outrage, disbelief, laughter, or all of the above. "And of course he is. So am I. But you're no threat to him."

"I've got a Taser."

"Against the god of thunder?" mutters Erik disbelievingly.

Loki's eyes shift to him for a split second, then back to Darcy. "Thor is friendly, sometimes to a fault. Offer him no threat, speak to him courteously, and he'll go along with you."

As he speaks, Jane realizes with shock that she's considering this. It's too weird – and so how could she refuse? All very well to shout "Eureka!" and leap from a bath, but so much more of the discovery she loves is heralded by someone saying, "Huh. That's weird…" and chasing that weirdness down.

The guiding star in her heart is the scream of an alien signal, too weird for anyone else to believe. But she believed. She's been chasing it ever since.

And now here it is, not a message from the stars but a _person_ , someone who was a rebellious teenager once and may be a rebel still, who's casually drinking cocoa from her "Land of Enchantment, Journey into Mystery" mug and grinning at Stark when he realizes that was his, who can snap his fingers and bring alien worlds to life all around her.

Stranger than she could have imagined.

And asking for her help.

"Erik has a point," she says instead. "Why do you need us?"

Stark says, "I don't have time to stake out New Mexico. We're over to Vandenberg next, the _Kite_ launches Thursday if the weather stays fine and everything checks out, and…" He rolls his eyes up as if checking an invisible calendar. "I like your ceiling. There's the Stars Expo, end of July, and I've got about ten thousand legal documents to sign. Good thing I've got people to write them for me. I don't know. So much stuff. But Pepper's the one with the schedule, for a little while longer."

"Oh?" Loki asks, drawn into some aside. "You've chosen, then?"

Stark sighs. "Yeah. It's just too much, and she can handle it. And better to do it now. In case."

"Tony –"

"Can we talk about this later, Loki?"

Loki mutters something under his breath, possibly not in English, and takes up his side of the account. "And it would be poor manners, to greet my brother with nothing to show for myself, and no hospitality to offer, only the desert. I do not know when he will arrive, or where. When I came to this world, I was…very lost. So would any of you be, cast adrift in a world you did not know."

He raises his head, and for a second Jane can _see_ the prince, all arrogance and confidence and determination. "I will not stand before him as if I have done nothing since then but howl at the sky in despair, like a dog waiting for its master to relent and allow its return to the fireside."

"So what do you say?" Stark asks, while Jane and her friends blink, taken aback. "C'mon, Dr. Foster, we're still talking and there's science to do. The Asgardians don't visit Earth very often. Loki says the last time they even noticed us was half a millennium ago. Miss out on this second chance, and there might not be a third."

This is insane on every level. She should have gone with her first instinct and told Stark to go away back when she still thought it was just him at her door. Erik still looks unhappy with Loki's involvement, whatever or whoever Loki actually is, Norse god or space alien. And Darcy…

Darcy doesn't get a vote, because what does Darcy know?

It's Jane's call.

She makes it.

She's still got her rain boots on, after all.

"Okay. I'm in. But you'd better be telling the truth about this. Both of you." Splash.

She'll talk to Erik once they've left, but there's no way she can let this opportunity that's shown up on her doorstep go, bizarre and still mostly unknown as their story is.

Plus, Tony Stark wants to fund her research. _Jackpot_.

"Awesome!" Darcy cheers. "We're going on an epic quest for an alien prince and also science! This is way cooler than dry ice."

Stark looks at her like she's crazy, so maybe he's finally getting the whole Darcy idea. But all he says is, "Thank you. You won't regret it. I hope."

Interesting. That last was aimed at Loki. So he's the mastermind of whatever this scheme is.

"They should have no cause to," Loki answers the implicit accusation mildly. "I thank you also. Doubtless Tony will equip you with many complicated machines to track the Bifrost's energy –"

"Hell yeah, I really want to know how you're setting up a radio array with three people and a van, do you have outpost stations somewhere to triangulate from? And did you build that mega-oscilloscope thing? Fantastic. I built a few scanners myself not long ago I'd really like you to look at –"

Loki seems used to Tony interrupting him, and speaks around him. How the hell did such an unlikely pair end up working together? "– but I am a creature of magic, and I would ask you to wear these."

He stretches out a hand, and four woven leather bracelets appear draped over it. Jane has an uncomfortable flashback to that anime film, the shadow creature proffering a handful of cursed gold…but there's a similar one wound about his own wrist. "I would prefer to keep this between my brother and myself," he explains – maybe. "If my father learns that Thor's arrival is anticipated, and prepared for, he may believe that I am setting some trap. But I intend neither Thor, nor any of you, any harm. These will keep you and your work hidden from the eyes of Asgard's Gatekeeper. Would you care to supply a name, Dr. Selvig?"

It's a challenge, and a mocking one, but Erik glares at Loki. "Heimdall," he volunteers after a moment of thought.

"Just so. If you can persuade Thor to wear the last of them, all the better. Tell him whatever you like, to convince him. It's harmless otherwise, and he should recognize my magic in it, if he's paying any attention at all."

Darcy grabs one without hesitation, snapping it around her wrist; Jane takes the remaining three after a glance at Erik, who's all but sitting on his hands, but does not put one on. "We'll consider it," she says, speaking for the two of them.

"Two questions," Darcy says cheerfully. "Can I put this on Facebook?"

"No," says everyone in the room, even Loki. Jane is glad that she wasn't the one who had to explain Facebook to an alien.

"None of you understand the importance of Facebook. So, are we kidnapping this guy?"

Loki smiles. "You are not."

"And if we find him," Jane asks, _if,_ because she just knows she's going to wake up tomorrow and disbelieve that any of this ever happened, and you know what, future Jane? You have a point. But _second chance_ , and _replicable results_ , what wonderful words those are. "What then? We just bundle him into the van and take him…where?"

Her visitors look at each other. "There's this town in Nevada," Stark says. "Real small place, totally controllable environment. SI has a footprint there, so I can block off somewhere neutral for you to – for you and him to talk." To Jane, he adds, "Yeah. Mercury's our rendezvous point. I'll pull some strings."

"Just find my brother," says Loki.

* * *

Almost an hour after they've left, Stark shedding email addresses and phone numbers and enthusiasm, with her fever dream of a wish list in hand, Jane's still staring at the disk with the data from that August night in 2002, cradling the mystery she's been chasing for years in her hands.

It can't be true, none of it.

Against her better judgment, she imagines a beam of light, faster than light, reaching out from one world to another, crossing the void and bringing not just answers but confirmation with it.

Erik's sitting in the back of the van, nursing his third beer. As far as Jane knows, there aren't any more in the fridge, so that's a self-resolving problem. Unless someone's hoarding a bottle of something stronger.

"Oh my god," Darcy bubbles over, sashaying around colorfully with excited music trailing from the earbud not plugged into her right ear, hips wiggling. Next to the rest of the room, she's almost unreal. "You realize what we just learned, right?"

"The old gods are real," Erik says, flat and dazed.

Jane blinks at the printouts she was trying to analyze before the entire world turned upside down. Garbage, echoes, nonsense – droplets before the storm. "There are aliens capable of _creating_ Einstein-Rosen bridges."

"No!" Darcy sighs and sets her hands on her hips. "Dorks. You're missing the most important thing."

Both Jane and Erik stare at her wordlessly.

She grins. "Tony Stark has a boyfriend. Weren't you paying attention?"

* * *

Tony loves driving. Seriously. Give him an open road and a place to be eventually, but maybe not yet, and a powerful machine purring around him, chasing the curves in the road and the sky, and he's happy. It's not quite as good as flying, because flying is as close to perfection as Tony can get – perfection is asymptotic, which figures – but it has its upsides.

For one thing, he can't bring Loki flying with him, and Tony is never going to get bored of glancing over and having the instinctive recognition of _that's Loki, he's my friend and my lover and he drives me mad_ be interrupted all over again with the shock and wonder of _that's Loki and he's actually from another world._

His boyfriend is an alien. _What the hell_.

And somehow that's ceased to be unthinkable, because it makes more sense than anything else. It _fits_ him. The way Loki's staring out the window at the New Mexico desert landscape like it's all new and a bit hostile is because to him…it is _._ To Loki, this is an alien planet.

And that's wonderful.

Sure, Tony's still mad at him for maintaining that lie for so long, but he's starting to understand why Loki couldn't just tell him, not at first. Talking to Dr. Foster, he'd briefly considered blurting out "Yeah, I need you to track down an alien who might also be a Viking god who's probably going to fall out of the sky any day now," but he'd been unable to get his mouth around the words. She'd have laughed in his face, and that would've be fine, but more importantly, she might have refused to help.

Tony's just mad because they could have been doing this all along. Less of the guessing and shadow games, and more of Loki actually _talking_ to Tony now. He's more open about saying "I didn't understand that," and "How does that work?" and "Why does that happen?" because it's okay if he betrays himself by not knowing something that everyone else does.

Some days, Tony is just constantly amazed that Loki both trusts him to have the answers, like some sort of living, breathing Google for human weirdness – fair enough – and trusts him to see the vulnerability.

He can't imagine the stress hidden behind that, that Loki was careful never to show him. The pressure of having to interpret an alien world from scratch, unable to admit that he didn't know what he was doing. And if Tony has done anything, if he matters to Loki at all, he would like to take credit for being someone Loki doesn't have to pretend around anymore.

Because if there's one thing he's sure of, it's that Loki doesn't trust _anyone_ easily. He's cautious to the point of paranoia, and Tony finds himself sometimes wanting to ask if he was this wary back home. Is this him, or is this new? Standard, or stress-related?

Loki had complained and…yeah, Tony is going to go with _whined_ …about telling Foster and her crew the truth, as ludicrous as the alternatives were. "We don't know them," he'd protested. "They'll talk."

"Nobody will believe them," Tony had argued. "You were pretty damn sure of that, talking around me."

"You want me to offer them proof! To show them clearly who I am and what I can do!"

"And so what?" Tony had said, flipping through the dossier JARVIS had put together on Jane Foster, whose scientific papers pushed the boundaries and whose history, based on some quick calls for references to past and current colleagues, suggested someone who might not just believe in Life Out There, but who might be actively searching for it. Who might be someone willing to imagine, when faced with something that defied conventional wisdom. Who might, in short, be just on that fine edge between skepticism and gullibility that Tony had faceplanted so drastically over the side of for so long.

He'd gone on, "You want them – we want them – to get mixed up in something they know nothing about. I think getting a glimpse of a bit of your magic is a fair trade. What else could you tell them? If Thor does show up –"

"He _will,"_ Loki had insisted, eyes darting to the poisonous arc reactor, and Tony had bitten back his flinch.

"– then he's not going to be all cagey, is he? He's going to tell them the truth, and do you really want to deal with the fallout from that? Let's keep our stories straight, okay? Why not come right out with it?" Loki had glanced away, and Tony had lowered his voice, trying to appeal to him. "Look," he'd said, wanting to reach out. "I'm on your side, Loki. There's nothing they can throw at us we can't knock down. We're in this together, right? You and me?"

For fuck's sake, the man needs _someone_ who's on his side, and Tony wants to be that person who has Loki's back, for as long as he can.

"…all right," Loki had said finally, looking back at him with anguish and reluctance still lingering in his eyes, and held Tony's gaze like a lifeline, _trusting_ him.

Tony has no idea what that means, does he?

"So what was it about?" he asks now, resisting the urge to play with the radio settings. Why is it always scary-intense fundamentalist radio that's the only thing on in areas like this? Is it something to do with the sky, and the need to put something up there, in between you and all that distance? Maybe it's just the appeal of having a captive audience with nothing else to listen to and a long way to go.

"What do you mean?" Loki replies, shaking himself away from the endless desert he's bristling at, slight but noticeable.

"The fight between you and your dad. The one you didn't tell Mystery Inc. about."

Loki sounds very puzzled. "Who? I don't understand anything you say sometimes."

Tony frees up a hand from the wheel to slap himself in the forehead gently, wondering how many more of his jokes Loki has missed. "Right. Crap. Alien from another planet –" _Still awesome!_ "– you obviously never watched _Scooby-Doo_ as a kid. Um…that's a children's TV program," he catches up with himself before Loki can get even more confused. "Mystery Inc. are the main characters, a bunch of teenagers in a van who run around chasing spooky and strange things. Like Foster and her buddies, only sillier, and there's a talking dog. But same question, Loki."

"Oh." Tony's willing to bet that's Loki filing that under _things I don't expect to understand._ But he goes on, tapping his fingers idly against the glass, "You're near enough to the mark…did you ever want a dog when you were a child?"

"Are you changing the subject again?" He eyeballs Loki suspiciously, enjoying the view.

And from his very faint smirk, Loki knows he's doing it. "I am not."

"Okay then," Tony says breezily, spotting the turnoff up ahead and shifting gears. New highway, same as the old highway. Airport, somewhere out there. "Wanted a dog, sure. Mom said she was allergic – although not to any of her fur coats, let me tell you – so I built robots instead."

"Wiser than I," Loki mutters ruefully. He opens his left hand, palm upwards, and the image of a heavy-shouldered husky dog – nope, nope, nope, that's Tony forgetting Loki's not an ordinary human being, and that's actually a wolf – materializes in his hand. Its eyes are very blue, which is why Tony had thought _husky_ , and its fur is a deep, dark grey that almost shades to black in the undercoat. Its tail wags back and forth leisurely as it takes a turn around Loki's palm as if settling down to sleep, but instead sits up, eyes bright, and bares its slightly jagged teeth in a strong muzzle at Tony.

"I brought home a direwolf cub –"

"Oh, how very George R.R. Martin of you," Tony could not stop himself from saying if his life were on the line. "No, never mind."

Loki ignores him appropriately. "– and tried to raise him in my rooms. In secret." With an odd gentleness, given that it's only an image, Loki transfers the wolf cub to the dashboard and it stalks around sniffing at the varnish. Tony's never getting over the detail Loki puts into things like this, so casually, so seemingly effortlessly. "He had grown quite large, and quite fearless, by the time we were discovered, and he would have become larger still; his shoulder would have stood level to yours, full-grown. Father was not pleased."

By this point, Tony can almost give the _no more true than the tabloids_ lecture himself. "And you never tire of protesting the lies they tell of you for their own entertainment," Loki had pointed out, indignant, when he'd found Tony immersed in a scan of a book of mythology.

But some of the names are right, which means this is something Tony can guess. "Fenris," he says, trying to imagine a wolf that big, with serrated teeth and more muscles than a wrestling match. "Fenris-wolf."

Loki sighs. "Closer to the truth, that tale, although he was still not my own blood. I understand he bit my father's guards most fiercely when they discovered him."

"You don't know?" Tony tries to look at the mini-wolf on the dashboard and the road ahead and Loki's expression all at once.

It's now a bitter scowl. Not a good memory, then. "Father had him…removed while I was away," Loki says curtly. He reaches out, beckoning the illusory wolf cub back into his hand, where Fenris fades away. Tony imagines Loki folding the memory back into his heart, there to be kept and treasured and never brought out into the scorching light.

Carefully, Loki goes on, "He claimed my cub would have fought all the harder if I had been there to protect. It was true enough, perhaps, but…" Anger chokes him silent.

For a while, the parched New Mexico desert landscape rolls past, power lines ticking off fifty-meter intervals and tiny scrub bushes barely more than patches against the burnt-golden earth. Somewhere on the horizon there are hills, but the wispy clouds above look closer and more attainable. The blacktop of the road is grey-brown with blown dirt, and heat hazes hover above it, flickering briefly before vanishing. The sun is punishing, and the Lamborghini's air conditioning is working harder than its engine is, laboring to keep their little bubble of car beneath the hardtop habitable. Tony's been looking for a cartoon cactus, but he hasn't spotted one yet. Maybe they're all in Arizona. Every so often, another car roars past in the opposite lane; once or twice, guys in unstoppable pickup trucks have honked at the zippy sports car.

Tony would love to sit Loki down and work out some math, figure out how long an Asgardian year is compared to an Earth one – he could build that up from counting off seconds, and multiplying – and maybe work out if there's a good comparison between Asgardian lifespan and how old Loki appears to be. But say they're one-to-one. He looks maybe very early thirties, and the boy in the story Loki had shown Mystery Inc. about fifteen or so…half his lifetime ago, then?

Five hundred years?

And still painful, as Loki says, "I would have liked to find him again, but I never discovered where he was taken."

This is a pattern, Tony realizes, and not a good one. Loki doesn't have friends. He'll talk to Tony about people he knows, now, and about his brother's friends back on Asgard, whom he seems to run with but not be particularly close to, but he's spoken more fondly of a puppy half a millennium lost and a horse given to his father as a peace-offering than of any of them.

Loki has pets. And he doesn't get to keep them.

Tony wonders if he counts as one. Loki's addressed him fondly as "pet" ever since the night Tony first kissed him, and yes, it's patronizing, but now Tony hears it in a new light. That's the affectionate relationship Loki understands.

And unfortunately – which isn't Tony's fault, but he's already starting to feel bad about it – one day that list of lost pets might include him too.

He's holding up, maintaining, but it can't last. Replacing the reactor core as it erodes is staving off the worst of the symptoms, although the pace of the burnout seems to be accelerating, and the palladium count in his blood is ticking upwards. He's started waking up in the middle of the night – or in the middle of whatever catnap he's managed to scrape together – feeling like there's a sun going nova right over the wreckage of his breastbone, sweating in psychosomatic response to imagined radiation.

The one in his chest now is a new core, replaced right before he'd grabbed Loki and called Pepper on the way out, telling her not to wait up or worry about him, he'd go straight to Vandenberg after this quick errand. Jane Foster's file hadn't even settled in the home server for a day before Tony had taken off after her. A dreamer, he'd inferred from the evidence he and JARVIS had put together, open-minded but careful, independent and stubborn, and in person, when pushed a little, she'd proved a better choice than they could have asked for.

"And now I know when you got here," Tony had said cheerfully as he'd pointed the Lamborghini out of tiny Puente Antiguo, an old bridge harboring someone looking for a very new bridge indeed. "We should have a party when August rolls around."

Yes. He's going to assume they're both still going to be here by then, because anything else is just not okay.

"No," Loki had objected instantly. "Tony, no."

"You sound like Pepper," he'd laughed.

"Good. Pepper's smarter than you. Tony, I…" Loki had grimaced. "It's not a good memory. I was…frightened, and alone, and very angry, and I would prefer not to remember such a time, much less celebrate it."

"I like parties," Tony had said mutinously.

"Find another reason, then."

"My birthday's coming up –"

"There you are."

Despite his resolution, his determination that August is a totally achievable goal, Tony feels more than ever like he's crossing things off a bucket list, and there's a horrible, sticky terror oozing through his stomach at odd moments, whenever he finds himself rushing towards something that there should be plenty of time for.

He's doing everything he can to have that time, and has never wanted quite so much to have something he could punch instead. Such an easier way to solve a problem, punching; what good is it to be Iron Man here?

He's spent sleepless nights in his lab experimenting with possible replacements – none of them work – on top of everything else he's trying to do. The element with the properties he needs simply doesn't exist. And after passing out in the hallway one – was it morning? – he's admitted to himself that he needs to focus on what he can do, and finally ask for help with the rest.

It's just too much.

Tony feels like he's making his will every time he gives some responsibility or another away, but what else can he do? So Pepper's getting the company, no arguments accepted. She's going to be a fantastic CEO in title as well as in practice. Dammit, though, he's going to have to hire someone to replace her, which Tony can barely even contemplate. What's he going to do without an unflappable redhead around?

At least Happy still has his back, even if he does keep coming up with terrible-tasting health drinks from his boxing days for Tony to try. The chlorophyll is gross but maybe helps.

Mystery Inc. – he's calling them that forever, and maybe fierce little Dr. Foster will warm up to him enough so he can use it to her face – has the staking out of New Mexico mission.

Rhodey took care of securing Vandenberg Spaceport for the _Kite_ launch in a couple of days, and hopefully future launches that Tony will of course be around to see.

And Loki…

"Tell me a story?" Tony can say, now and again when he's too tired to sleep and too burned out to think. And if they're apart and talking over the phone, Loki will at least talk to him, and if they're together, his extraordinary alien lover will show him some misadventure from his life on Asgard.

Tony is completely mad about Loki's magic, just as he'd promised her, not just the existence of it – although that's knocking him for six every time he stops and thinks about it – but the _artistry_ , the nonchalant ease with which Loki makes things happen with a wave of a hand.

He's mad in a completely different way about the way he catches Loki flinching sometimes, like his brilliant, _fantastic_ magician expects to be told off for using it.

Freaking stuck-up Viking Klingons, Tony wants to growl at the Aesir, hitting something with a hammer is _not_ the only way to do things!

He can make this comparison with confidence now, because by now Tony feels like he's met Thor, who features in so many of Loki's stories, and Thor's various sidekicks. Determined, proud Lady Sif, wielding her double swords and almost as out of place as Loki himself. The Warriors Three, as Loki says they call themselves, quiet, cautious Hogun and flamboyant, melodramatic Fandral and rough, gluttonous Volstagg, all content to run at Thor's heels. Quite the gang he's got, Asgard's golden prince, and Loki pacing the boundaries around them, trapped – or so Tony secretly infers – in his brother's orbit.

Nine times out of ten, he can even pronounce _Mjolnir_ to Loki's satisfaction.

"And you're sure your brother isn't going to bring his friends along?" Tony asks now, picking up his own train of thought. Changing the subject, but it needs changing like a baby. "That's a lot of Asgardians for Mystery Inc. to handle all at once. For one thing, if they have to put Volstagg in that van, I don't think they could fit even Darcy in as well."

Loki smiles briefly. "It's a gamble. But I think not. He shouldn't think he'll need them, just to put me in my place again."

He says it so casually, but it makes Tony want to stomp on the brakes and get out of the car and just _yell._ There's a pattern Tony's noticing, that Loki may not realize is there for the noticing, and it shows through in phrases like that, mixed in with so many of Loki's stories.

But for once, Tony is holding his tongue.

For now.

Because what good will it do to confront Loki about it, as Tony had admitted to himself one night while another reactor core test spun its way to failure, when Tony might not have the time left to offer him anything else? He can't stab at something so close to Loki's guarded heart, not when Tony might have to leave before he can fix anything he breaks in the attempt.

He doesn't want to think about it, but it's a shadow that's getting harder and harder to ignore, even as the New Mexico sun beats down and Tony flips down the sun visor automatically. Loki, watching his movement out of the corner of his eye, does the same, so casually that if Tony didn't _know_ , he wouldn't have realized that Loki might not have known what those weird flippy panels were for, and had only found out now.

Last week, Loki had tried, really, really tried to fix the dark lines like evil Tron that have begun spiderwebbing beneath Tony's skin, poison and death visibly etching their way outward from the arc reactor. Tony had seized the rare opportunity for a nap as his lover had knelt over him for what might have been hours – he was just so tired. He'd drifted back to consciousness once to find one of Loki's hands splayed out over the arc reactor, the light of it glinting out from behind a curtain of long dark hair as Loki's breath whispered over his bare chest, the magician's forehead resting against his collarbone like Loki had left his body there and sent his mind out a-wandering.

"I'm no healer," Loki had said, and tried anyway.

They'd stayed there in an odd sort of resigned peace, Tony sinking back into sleep while Loki did whatever he was doing. Scanned him, maybe. Tracked the poison in his veins, or mapped the energy of the arc reactor.

He'd woken with a start when Loki had jerked away, swearing unintelligibly – but Tony knows swearing when he hears it – in a language that wasn't English, furious at his own failure.

"It's all right," Tony had tried to soothe him, a bit groggily. "You said you weren't a healer, but you tried, and it's not your fault –"

"It is _not_ all right!" Loki had spat at him, and gone invisible. But Tony had heard him storm away, boots rapping against the floor, and a _thud_ like he'd punched the wall in frustration.

No, Tony admits to himself now, as he downshifts through another exit and traffic starts to pick up from post-apocalyptic desolation levels, it's not. So he's going to jam everything he can into the time he has left.

Hey, maybe he can even treat himself to a weekend's vacation before the Stars Expo starts. (People gave up saying Stark/Mars within minutes and just portmanteau'ed it into something easier, and Tony, seeing the way things were going, had for once gone along with them. Also, Pepper had said "Yes," and called Marketing immediately.)

So, what'll it be, Tony wonders. Vegas, for old times' sake? Or maybe something further afield… There's gotta be something awesome going on in the world he can take the family to.

And he'll work like hell in the moments he has, to buy himself a little more time and not give up hope that either science or magic will come through for him.

…even if he probably used up all his miracles the night his boyfriend turned out to be an alien prince capable of actual magic, deceptive and manipulative and as stubborn as Tony himself. And let's not forget beautiful, Tony thinks fondly, glancing over to see how much happier Loki seems now that they're out of the depths of the desert and there's more around than dry desolation.

 _You walked out of the desert,_ Tony thinks, and hears the echo of the same words in Loki's accent, a year ago.

Glorious, and at the same time so desperately fallible; Loki – _his_ Loki, the man he got to know despite the deceptions and the lies, the man he wants so much anyway – isn't untouchable or unbreakable, but instead so very _human_ , even as he insists he isn't.

Damnfool man.

Human doesn't mean _from Earth._

Human means _like me._

These are the things he thinks about these days, Tony smirks at himself, disbelieving and wondering. And that's not all because of the wonderfully mad creature in the Lamborghini's passenger seat, but Loki's a big chunk of it.

Loki, and the arc reactor, both tangled around his heart. Iron Man, reinventing him every day; SHIELD, still out there somewhere. Mars, gleaming in the sky; Asgard, looming on the horizon…

Cheerfully, unapologetically shallow Tony Stark from four years ago might not even _recognize_ the person he is today.

What the hell even is Tony's life anymore?

* * *

But the launch from Vandenberg goes beautifully.

Thousands of excited people race around talking to and past each other, biting their nails and hugging, and obsessively checking their calculations and everyone else's. There are cameras everywhere, amateur and professional, in the hands of cable journalists and space historians, people with blogs and people with Facebook pages.

In the list of things that haven't changed and probably never will, Tony still loves the spotlight, and does everything but preen in the gazes of the cameras pointed at him. He talks to absolutely everyone, congratulating them for being here and for believing in…no, not him. He's the guy getting things started, but he makes sure to introduce the cameras to the people getting things done.

Secretly, he regrets that all the cameras are why Loki is nowhere to be seen.

Still, Tony doesn't hesitate to pull out a camera of his own – his new phone is smarter than a decent computer – when he gets sidetracked through Vandenberg's museum, because there's a Thor rocket. He snaps a picture. Now he's got the set.

Doubtless Loki will snort disdainfully and roll his eyes.

He gets caught on camera throwing his hands in the air and yelling "MARS!" at the top of his lungs. Which is fine, because everyone else in the cavernous mess hall is doing it with him, and they all laugh madly, and Tony feels, just for a moment, unstoppable.

* * *

Launching something that doesn't blow up is, it turns out, even better than launching something that blows up real good…if it's something that starts out as fifteen meters of metallic, elongated delta shape, crouched humming on the SLC-3W pad, all red accents and golden heat shields and black sensor panels, and ends up as a triumphant streak of blue-edged light, bursting through the thin cloud cover and up into low earth orbit.

The weather is calm and mostly clear and summer-warm, and the _Kite_ , riding on its scaled-up repulsors and the arc reactor in its heart, blazes the way towards another world.

The cheering and yelling and that platoon of people with a cultural grab bag of noisemakers are _maybe_ louder than the launch of the _Kite_ itself.

And for the tense moments as the launch goes from muttered prayers of "Please, please, please," in every throat in the control room, to screams of triumph from all sides, there's a familiar hand on Tony's shoulder, and Loki's presence beside him as they watch the _Kite_ fly together. Invisible to anyone else, perhaps, but Tony knows he's there.

For a little while longer, at least.

And Tony is going to make the most of the time they have left.

* * *

 _To be continued._


	14. 3000 Miles to Graceland

ON WITH THE SHOW!

 **Chapter Fourteen: 3000 Miles to Graceland**

"I _won't,_ " Loki says, eyes flashing, completely stubborn, gorgeous. If she actually puts her hands on her hips, Tony's going to have to give her anything she wants – nothing new there, then. Instead, she raps her fingers against her side absently, grasping for something that's not there, and glares at him.

But Tony can deal with that, because arguing with Loki over something so petty is a lot more fun than listening to the countdown in the back of his mind, the one that looks at everything and whispers _last chance_. "So don't," he tosses back breezily. "I just thought you might want to come along."

"And I do," she retorts.

 _Monaco_ , Tony had said to him on the way back from Vandenberg. _We deserve a vacation, and the Monaco Grand Prix is next weekend – it's a race, a car race, really fast and lots of fun – and I didn't get to go last year, and I think there's actually a Stark car in the running. I know you've been to Europe before, did you make it to almost-France? Want to?_

Now, he goes on, "– and I figured, why bother with the sneaking around and going invisible whenever someone looks at you? Why hide, if everyone here knows what you can do and you're so sure your people can't see you?"

Reintroducing Loki, magic and all, to the household had been some fun…for a very specific definition of fun. Rhodey's been away, but Tony had sat Happy down with a couple of beers and walked him through it, that Loki's not human and from a race of super-strong warrior aliens, really magic and a thousand years old, and, every so often, female. They'd needed more beer, and Happy hadn't quite believed it until he'd encountered her quizzing JARVIS and Tony one morning about _why_ peanut butter and jalapeno sandwiches are not an acceptable breakfast food, if cold pizza is. Happy had looked a little wild-eyed about being drawn into this argument – Tony's never been so quick to say _not my boyfriend_ , just for the looks they'd both given him – but handled it like a champ.

Pepper had walked into a room with her, stopped short, raised a hand to her own throat in unconscious self-defense, or maybe to catch the gasp in it, and just _stared_ , before saying "Oh my," in a very small voice, totally failing to sound like George Takei.

In both cases, Loki had switched back to his original form as soon as neither Happy nor Pepper screamed, ran and/or threw things, like it had been an experiment. Testing the waters. And while Tony's _completely_ crazy about this transformation that Loki's capable of, he can't help but suspect that this is another thing Asgard didn't approve of, something else Loki has been trained to hide.

But this is Earth, and more specifically, this is Tony's house and Tony's life that he's still hanging on to, and he's going to do everything he can to convince Loki that he – or she – is welcome here. And that's not even the problem right now.

"I'm just saying," he goes on, "like this, no one will look at you twice. Well. That's not true. But no one will be surprised to see you with me, because you're gorgeous. Right up until I address you as _Loki_ , because that's different. That's memorable."

"We had a deal," she says sulkily.

Tony laughs aloud. After everything, he can't believe she's still trying to insist on that _my name and no other_ arrangement. "The deal is _off_ , princess. The deal was rigged from the beginning and you know it, and it was over the second you lied to me. Which, I bet, means we _never_ had a deal."

Green shadows flare around Loki's tapping fingers, just for a moment, but she snaps them out as if throwing something away. Tony wonders if he actually saw the glint of light off a knife-edge, if Loki's first reaction to being defied is still to attack.

But to his very great amusement, Loki accepts "princess" as a perfectly valid form of address – because, he's realized, as far as she's concerned, it is. She is, after all, the same person who'd looked Tony in the eye and named himself a prince of Asgard.

And Tony feels like Han Solo, possibly the only person cooler than he is, every time he says it.

"So it's up to you," he adds, backing down deliberately. Under other circumstances, he'd love to see just how far he can push this and just how gloriously angry Loki can get before leaping at him and they end up screwing on the floor. That's a magnificent distraction from the poisonous chunk of palladium wearing away in his chest and a hell of an adrenaline rush, but Pepper's just in the next room.

Although she is on the phone, the new CEO of Stark Industries keeping her finger on all the pulses, and likely to be so for a while longer…

"Come along if you want. You're welcome to. I want you to. Monaco's beautiful, Loki, you'll love it there, even if you don't care about the race – do they have races on Asgard?"

Her eyes soften. "Of course. On foot, on horseback." She smirks. "And _our_ vehicles fly."

There are days Tony wants to kick that entire planet up and down Lombard Street with the Iron Man boots. There are other days when he wants to move there and never leave. Sometimes they're the same days, and he jumps from one state to the other between sentences.

He doesn't let himself get distracted – he's winning this one. "But I've got to call you something, because people are going to ask, and wouldn't it be better to not put your real name out there so obviously? Just for this one trip, Loki. Just to people we don't care about, that you'll never see again."

 _Because you're leaving_ , he doesn't say. As the first layers of the shock and the glamor of who and what Loki is fade away, the hurt beneath it has reemerged, ripping at him in odd moments. _Because either you're leaving, or I am, and I can't accept either of those possibilities._

But he doesn't have the time to deal with that, so he's buried it again.

She does indeed put one hand on her hip. "No."

Tony groans and looks up at the ceiling. "Fine. Don't come."

He looks back down again just in time to catch the flicker of uncertainty in her eyes – this face is much less trained to imperturbability, and Tony's not above using that. "How will you stop me?" she challenges.

"Oh, come _on_ , Loki. You know I can't. Do what you want, follow us if you want, but seriously? That's really the better option?" He takes her free hand and gives her his very best smile. Loki is indeed still taller than him. "Please?"

"Don't do that," she orders curtly, pushing him away and turning her back. "Fine!"

"What was that?"

"I said fine! Don't overuse it and don't _ever_ –"

"Promise," Tony says hurriedly, grinning.

* * *

One day, Natasha Romanov, Agent of SHIELD, former…well, that's none of your business…known to some as the Black Widow, would like an undercover assignment that doesn't require her to wear high heels.

She can slip in and out of a cover story as easily as her combat suit and can navigate her way through a reverse interrogation as easily as a flawless dancer on an open floor. She can make even the most cynical mark believe she's just panting to sleep with them and that she's the best lay they've ever had, and she can put a man twice her weight onto the ground before he's even registered she's there. She lives and breathes her assignments like they're pure truth and the only thing that has ever mattered, and then sets them aside like torn paper.

She can rebuild her entire identity from the bloody-handed, mercenary creature she'd once been, whoring herself out to anyone with a target and enough cash, into someone who can meet her own eyes in the mirror as she prepares for another assignment. Or better still, when she's taking the disguise and the trappings off in Clint's farmhouse bathroom, the girls playing outside the door and their dad's smile of welcome and trust lingering beyond the shadows of her memories.

She has a purpose, one she's proud of. She's trusted. She has comrades truer than she'd ever known the word could be used, and she even has a couple of much-treasured friends.

She can sleep through the night.

But she would like her boots back.

Still, compared to some of her assignments, this one is nothing to complain about. Some attractive pictures, a quick-study course in legal procedures – much aided by the whisper channel in her ear – a demure smile and a nice dress, and one last-ditch incidence of bribery so that she was the one to bring the Stark Industries transfer papers to one Tony Stark, Iron Man, at his luxurious house one bright morning. And she's right where she needs to be.

She knows better than anyone that everyone's the same, underneath the social status and the lies they tell themselves. Everyone's mortal. Everyone bleeds. Everyone wants the same basic things. And she's studied Stark, so she knew what to expect and how to react to him. She'd felt his eyes on her the second she stepped into the room, kept her stance just unassuming enough to present no threat, put herself in the best possible light as if she hadn't known she was doing it.

Throwing his bodyguard to the ground in that sparring ring hadn't been a miscalculation. Yes, her training had taken over, reacting on instinct to neutralize even a minor threat, but the flare of interest in Stark's eyes had been just as she'd intended. He's got an eye for the unusual, the dangerous, the challenging.

All that lines up perfectly with his personality index, but…SHIELD has been keeping an eye on this man all his life, she knows from what Director Fury has told her. And even they hadn't expected him to crash his weapons company and turn it into a space company instead, like this most worldly of men had been secretly nurturing a dream of the stars all along. Where had that come from?

Also, Natasha – Natalie, as far as Stark knows – had been fully prepared to sleep with him. God knows she'd had worse assignments, and she'd probably even enjoy it. But he hasn't made a move on her. Perhaps it's too early, even for him – she's been his "personal assistant" for less than a week, since Pepper Potts signed those transfer papers – but she feels like she's been given the once-over, sexually, and then set aside.

No matter; Natasha is fine with being Natalie, unnoticed and efficient and unflappable – Stark's word. He'd said, "I have a vacancy for an unflappable redhead. Interested?" Given enough time, she'll know exactly what makes Tony Stark run and, more importantly, if he's going to self-destruct, and most importantly of all, if he's really as valuable an asset to the Director's Initiative as Fury hopes he can be.

Which is why she's standing on the portico of the Hotel de Paris, watching a large black car pull around to a discreet entryway.

Odd. All they know about Stark says he's an attention hound, to say the least. There are panting crowds lined up twelve deep, and not for the race.

Natasha draws up Natalie like a hood, and moves briskly over to the small stairway to greet her nominal boss.

She ticks off familiar faces as she does – "Happy" Hogan, driver and somewhat cursory bodyguard, former boxer and not very good at it, now what Coulson would call logistical support and Clint would call a go and do it guy. He hands over the limousine keys to the valet but keeps hold of a metallic red suitcase even as he gives the area a basic once-over and nods to the next person to exit the car before stepping away, off to somewhere less pretentious where they serve real food.

Pepper Potts, longtime and now former personal assistant, unacknowledged and now realized businesswoman keeping Stark Industries on a relatively even keel despite Stark's best efforts to rock the boat over. The patience of a statue, and a mind like one of Clint's arrows, the ones he knows by heart and so doesn't label. They might be poisonous. They might explode. They might electrocute things, just like her fingertip discs. They might spit out razor blades. But there's no way for anyone else to know until it's too late.

And Tony Stark, unlikely superhero and complete narcissist, his glib tongue and camera-magnet smile a cover for the dangerously clever mind behind them, worryingly unpredictable and not to be underestimated. He springs out of the car and races over to the open road fearlessly, waving and flashing triumphant finger V's to the hundreds of cameras that flash at him instantly.

But he's back almost at once, and to Natasha's surprise, which of course does not show on Natalie's face, he's opening the fourth car door and grinning mischievously as he offers a hand to –

Who is that?

Natalie is probably meant to dismiss the lovely dark-haired woman who takes his hand and allows herself to be drawn from the car, despite the sarcastic air that says this is a joke and everyone had better know it. She doesn't let him keep hold of her hand, but she does nudge her shoulder against his, staying close, and he laughs up at her, easy with her. She's half a head taller than he is, perhaps three or four inches, with black hair that falls to below her shoulder blades, a tiny braid bracketing her angular face.

Details. Furniture. As easily changed as the elegant clothes she's wearing, a feminine black suit cut tight and flattering – her athlete's figure probably doesn't need the help – with a green sash about her waist.

Natasha automatically looks for the weapon concealed beneath its sleek lines, because she sees someone who knows how to move and who's aware of her surroundings. The woman has done nothing more than accompany Stark up the stairs to where Natalie's waiting for them, but Natasha already knows that this woman could fight her.

And be serious competition. And, quite possibly, win.

She's also had the sense to wear – nice, stylish, misleadingly delicate – boots, ready to run and fight and maybe kick shards of someone's nose through their brain. Natalie and Natasha are both jealous.

"Oh, I should have known," Pepper Potts is chiding Stark now, glancing from Natalie to her supposed boss. Her look of surprise has quickly become exasperation, and then resignation. "Really, Tony?"

The strange woman looks at her, just once, as Stark waves off his former PA's objections and grins at Natalie like they've shared a secret. Natasha is more concerned with the calculating green eyes that have just swept over her, and the sense of _recognition_ that's followed in their wake.

She's never seen this woman before, but Natasha knows her, and she knows – no, she hadn't even seen Natalie. She'd seen _Natasha_.

And that is very worrying indeed.

"Oh, hey, Natalie. Perfect," Stark is saying, and Natalie pays attention dutifully as he says to the warrior woman, "I told you about Natalie, right? 'Course I did. Excellent. Natalie, this is a friend of mine. Call her Lucy."

Lucy's smile is cynical and deeply amused as she dips nothing but her eyes, just a fraction, in a nod of greeting and says, "Ms. Rushman," in a low British alto.

Somehow Lucy manages to give the impression of not being pulled along in Stark's wake as he blazes through the hotel's restaurant like a runaway train, treating everything like it's his and everyone else is incidental, appropriating tables and people's time and giving new meaning to the words _charm offensive._ Lucy, whoever she is, keeps pace with him, but she moves like she's in a world of her own.

The second no one is watching her, even as she follows Stark, Natasha needs to get SHIELD working on who _else_ might have planted an undercover agent in Stark's household, or where and when he hired a new bodyguard. And no one is paying attention to Natalie. Everyone with sense is homing in on Pepper Potts, and every easily-caught eye is on Tony Stark, who's now humming the theme to "Charlie's Angels".

Everyone is mortal and everyone bleeds, and what keeps Natasha on the survivor's end of that certainty is that she's careful. She's the best there is at what she does. She's faced down lunatics and psychopaths and petty, evil little despots.

And Lucy worries her.

Yes. Worries.

* * *

Tony had briefly considered inventing a cover story for Lucy – Loki's going to kill him, he just knows it – but she had rolled her eyes at him and said, "Don't help, Tony."

He needn't have worried. Almost everyone has assumed that a pretty woman at Tony Stark's side is arm candy, there to be beautiful and nothing else – god, was he really that shallow? Only one inquisitive woman had asked, "And what is it you do, dear?"

She'd gotten a very arch expression over a glass of dark wine and only, "I don't need to _do_ anything. I just am _. Dear._ Right now, I am seeing the world." Grace Kelly herself couldn't have been more regal or more at home.

Now that Tony's watching it from the outside, so to speak, it's hilarious to watch people fill in the wrong blanks and think they know what Lucy just said.

Under the jealous and adoring eyes of the Monaco-millionaire crowd and a good representation of tech dynamos he knows by their nicknames and drink orders, the rush of being here with the people he cares about most is starting to fade. It's leaching away from him like someone's opened a sluicegate and let all his banked-up, hoarded energy rush away. But he's mildly cheered by the livid expression on the face of Justin Hammer, who's failed to recapture the attention of his lady companion and is chewing on his caviar fork like he's imagining Tony's heart on it.

Wouldn't he get a nasty surprise, if it was?

The chatter all around him blurs into meaningless noise, and Tony tries to narrow his focus down to the fussy little table they're at while Natalie tries to reorganize their lunch reservations. Good test for her. She hasn't yet earned even the little regard Pepper got from him, and if she can keep up with him, she can maybe stay.

Elon stops off to ask why he'd chosen Vandenberg as a launch site rather than Cape Canaveral, and there actually is a funny story behind that, but right now, talking seems very hard. He doesn't have the breath for it, and there's a horrible buzzing in his ears. For a second, Tony half-believes that there's another sonic paralyzer singing its merry little tune of betrayal and violation and death, imprisoning him within his own mutinous body.

But there isn't, and there never will be again, and everyone else in the room keeps yammering and hugging and air-kissing each other. There's a guy in the back of the room with a poker visor who Tony suspects is a bookie, taking private bets on the race; Tony overhears someone asking, "What are the numbers, Stan?" and the bookie scribbles something onto his pad. Through the crowd, Hammer's date – hey, that's Christine again – catches his eye and winks at him, just a flutter of eyelashes.

Pepper, who's wonderful, heads Elon off with, "Mr. Musk, I wonder if we could talk about your proposal for the Mars buggies –" and they're off and away talking about the business implications of electric vehicles and self-driving navigation systems.

That leaves Tony in relative peace to get his breath back and anchor himself on the last taste of whiskey in his nearly empty glass. He retunes his ears to the mingled French and English conversations going on around him, focusing on following both languages in parallel.

On his other side, "Lucy" is a picture of indolent ease, gazing out of the window at the tiers of red-roofed buildings and the gleaming bay. She's basking in the Mediterranean sun like the restaurant full of trend-setters and new-money barons and minor royalty are the least interesting thing she's ever encountered. He's never needed a touchpoint amidst chaos, but he's so ridiculously happy she's here, on the off chance that this time he does. When he turns to her, catching her attention, it's like it's just the two of them.

Tony wants to give his alien magician this whole world just in case he can't get Loki Asgard – if that's what he even wants to do. It's Loki's heart's desire, but Tony's harboring doubts like the boats drawn up to the docks in the bay. For now, he can give her Monaco. "See where they've blocked off the course? It's one of the only races still run on city streets. Every year they have to go through and weld all the manhole covers shut, you know why?"

"The metal discs in the road?"

"Right. Because the cars go so fast, they might suck the covers up in their wake, and can you imagine what that would do to 'em?"

Loki grins just a shade of the Real Smile and says, for Tony's ears only _,_ "I imagine it would be rather like Volstagg throwing a platter through the table."

"Holy _shit,_ whatever for?"

"Who can say?" she shrugs. "Thor dared him to, I believe."

Tony laughs. "Food fights of the gods. Wow. Anyway, racing doesn't get faster or riskier or better than this one, not legit racing anyway. Drivers flame out every year, and you have to be _really_ at the top of your game to get all the way through the course. I don't know who the company sponsored this year, they just put my name on the car. But drive Monaco, and you've still got it."

Something twinges in his chest as he speaks, a sick taste building in the back of his throat, and Tony bites back a curse and stomps hard on the urge to turn his face into Loki's currently slim and feminine shoulder and ground himself there.

"I'm just gonna –" he says when he's got his breath again, grabbing his jacket – and the sensor permanently ensconced in his pocket – off the back of the chair. "Be here when I get back?" Tony asks, legacy of the Las Vegas years when Loki was apt to disappear whenever Tony looked away or otherwise hinted that Loki didn't have his full attention.

She grimaces slightly. "I might wander, for a time."

He follows her gaze to the peak of a rooftop, unoccupied by sightseers only because it's so high and inaccessible and frankly unsafe-looking, and snorts. "You and heights, unbelievable. Okay. Not giving you permission, you don't need it."

"Thank you," Loki mutters under her breath as he kisses her and heads off, not without a tug on that Jedi braid that's reappeared in her hair today.

Safely locked away in the privacy of the bathroom, he gives in to temptation and jabs the point of the little blood tester into his thumb.

BLOOD TOXICITY: 36%, it says. When it hits 100, will he drop dead? Before that? What's the black-magic number?

Tony stares at it like the death sentence it is, mute and hollow and shuddering with it like a bell without a clapper. Thorns snag his ankles, twining their way up his legs and nipping painfully at the inside of his thighs, warning him that if he runs, if he fights, he'll only kill himself faster. Every extra strain on the reactor accelerates the process, and Tony knows that, but he _can't_ give up flying, can't resist the glory of showing off what the Iron Man suit – and he – can do, can't stop tinkering with it, trying to improve it even further.

Ready to fight Aesir, if he must; ready to fight whatever Earth can throw at him, absolutely; but he can't fight the poison in his blood, and sometimes, like now, Tony wants to scream and break something. He wants to smash the little device into the mirror and destroy its tattling tongue flicking out next to that one sharp tooth. He wants to run, and he wants to hide, and he wants to know that he's still alive and forget that sometime soon, he might not be.

So much to live for now, and yet – and yet!

It's getting harder and harder to convince himself that he's going to make it, that he's going to be around to see everything that he wants to become reality. But how many chances does he really think he's going to get? Twice now he's been dead, and twice now he's pulled himself back from the brink with those hands stretched out to him. He's done it before, and he'll do it again, or so he tries to tell the haggard-looking guy in the mirror.

Tony's not scared. He'll be fine. He just has to hang on, and believe. And resist.

"Got any more bad ideas?" he asks the mirror.

And remembers what he'd just said to Loki, about driving Monaco.

He doesn't quite have to climb out of a bathroom window, but adrenaline and mad laughter bubble under his skin like new champagne as he sidles around corners and makes a break for the street, walking like he knows where he's going and, more importantly, what he's doing.

Because, as he'll say to the TV cameras a few minutes later, what's the point of _having_ a race car, if you don't drive it?

* * *

The giant screens hoisted or projected all around this silly, tawdry race track are a gift. A _sign_. A cascading sequence from the universe, pointing Ivan Vanko towards his prey.

How can these fools be so deceived? Stark is a parasite, self-deluded and puffed-up with stolen cleverness. Look at him. Dismissing the professional driver and then jumping into the race car on a whim, like he's playing a game.

Why does no one stop him? Why does no one turn him aside and say _you cannot do that_? Why does no one say _you're not worthy_? Are they all too dazzled by the shining technology implanted nearly into whatever passes for Stark's heart, or the money he throws around like it's meaningless, or the way he careens through the world in the wholly mistaken belief that he's everyone's darling?

Well, the world that pants at Stark's heels is in for a shock.

He will set things right. He will make their false god bleed, and show him for what he truly is. Just a man not worthy of the name, from a family of thieves and liars; a child playing with the fruits of Anton Vanko's genius as if they were toys. And like every ignorant child grasping at something he does not understand, Stark will burn himself.

Almost tempting to leave him, watch from afar as his own arrogance kills him painfully and slowly. Palladium injected directly into the chest is a terrible way to die.

Which is why Ivan Vanko's own reactor, humming against his breastbone like his father's laboring heart once did, is built into the rig he wears beneath his cursory disguise and safely outside his body.

More satisfactory to kill him, and let his sycophants see their hero fall.

On a mission of vengeance for the legacy that should have been his, and the recognition and profit that should have been his father's, and the injustices they both endured that drove the elder into his frozen grave and the younger into this pit of spoiled children, the burly Russian physicist strides through the laboring pit crews and the privileged spectators. No one questions his presence. The Grand Prix is full of support staff whose faces will never appear on any television screen like the fluttering commentators exclaiming over Stark's latest inane stunt.

Vanko could not have asked for a better opportunity. Stark will come to him, and so he makes his way along the boarded-off race route, learning the curves of it and waiting for his moment as he chews on a toothpick and feels the metal of his rig warm beneath the burning sun. The race reminds him of a supercollider, almost, particles spinning through the narrow channel between collimating beams, driving them faster and faster on a collision course with each other and with truth.

He will break Stark open like a sacrificial proton, smashed to bits against an equal and opposite force, and then everyone will see what their hero is made of.

Nothing.

Are there cars, in the distance, powerful motors roaring in answer to thousands of screaming throats? They'll be screaming again soon.

Lurking in a corner between gate and fence, Vanko is so focused on listening to the track that he doesn't notice the woman behind him until she taps on his shoulder.

"Excuse me," she says, absurdly polite, and Vanko shrugs her away.

"I don't speak French," he growls in his own Russian.

"Neither do I, in truth," she replies, in perfect and educated Russian, and that's strange enough for him to peel the slightest edge of his attention away from his hunt and towards her.

Pretty, in that underfed, haughty Westerner manner. Balanced, alert. Not a speck of grease or oil clings to her skin or her suit, despite the bustling mechanics all around. But Vanko has more important things to worry about. "Go away," he says curtly, and refocuses on the track.

Or tries to. "Why do you smell like that?" she persists. "I know that aura. I could sense it from the heights. How do you come to have that?"

It's uncomfortably warm here, even without the rig, which is just waiting for its chance to overheat, but still a trickle of Moscow's ice rolls down Vanko's spine as he turns around fully. _Damn_ her, he will miss this perfect shot at Stark. But there will be others, and he trusts his instincts, and whoever she is, he does not want this woman at his back. "What did you say?"

She tips her head to one side, inquisitive, and the hand raised in thought to her lips turns towards Vanko, palm out. "Ah," she says, in a tone of deep satisfaction. "There it is." And she crooks her fingers towards his chest, beckoning.

To his quickly-muffled shock, the arc reactor lights up, shining clearly through his stolen pit crew uniform, as if she'd brought it to full power with no more than a gesture.

And yet nobody looks at them. The eyes of the people hustling past glaze over Vanko as if he isn't there. Not like before, when nobody noticed him because he wasn't important, but like they can't see him at all. Somehow, there's an empty circle around them both, strange woman and would-be assassin, where no one is walking. They go around, as if there were a barrier that they can't see.

All this, Vanko notices in a blink. In the next one, he spots the woman's other hand, turning in seemingly idle circles by her side, like someone stirring up a whirlpool.

An eddy. A vortex. An emptiness.

Ivan Vanko is a physicist. A scientist cheated of his inheritance, his father's work, and their good name. But he is also more than half mad, and the dark tales are part of his heritage and the world he dwells within, and he names this woman for what she is in a single accursed word.

" _чародейка_ _!"_ he snarls, _witch!_ , and strikes her, knowing in his bones that he must stop her before she can act.

His clenched fist never hits; quicker than thought or sight, the hand outstretched towards him has a knife in it. Vanko sees it only when it stops, in the reflection from the sparks bursting out from the deadly whip-like machine bound to his arm, torn open by the blade embedded in metal, dividing circuitry from skin. For a second, they freeze there, a tableau in threat.

The witch shifts her knife just a hairsbreadth, slicing deeper into the whip, and Vanko feels the flow of energy to it die, bleeding out like a wounded body. The slightest movement, and the other edge of the blade will be through the muscles and the big arteries in his arm. And all the time, her other hand circles, and the ignorant fools packing Monaco's streets overlook them both like they're not there.

"So I've been called," she says, clipped Russian words smooth and amused. Her smile doesn't quite hide her teeth as she speaks. "Shall I name you in return?"

Beyond the barricade, cars race by, engines roaring, tires screaming, the rattle of metal against metal and stone and wood betraying the moment one of them scrapes against the barriers, the flanges of it grinding against the side of the course. The perfect shot, Ivan Vanko's chance to show the world what a worthless thief and straw man Tony Stark really is and how easily he can be cut down to size and set ablaze, has passed him by. But this woman is a more immediate problem.

How she's doing it is irrelevant – what Vanko needs to know is why, and if he must kill a witch before he can bring justice down on Stark's head from its long forty-plus-year orbit. "Go away," he warns her. "This is no affair of yours."

"Oh, and yet I think it is." Her eyes are almost glowing in the light from his reactor, still lit up like a spotlight but the energy going nowhere, cut off from the weapon it was meant to run. "You have something you shouldn't, and you come arrayed for battle…"

"You're Stark's guard, then," he grunts, trying to size her up. Fast, but slender; muscles on her, but he's heavier, and the first solid punch will break her. If he can get her off-balance, then what's left of the whip will put an end to this, and he'd known he might have to go through a bodyguard, despite Stark yapping on television for all to hear that he doesn't have one. A liar as well as a thief, then. How had she found him? He'd been careful to leave no trail. Her eyes are fearless, and that she's wielding a combat-ready knife rather than a gun isn't strange – a knife is silent. "Operating in the shadows. Cleverer than I thought. But you're in my way."

Power boils down the circuits in his other hand, and Ivan Vanko lashes it down like lightning.

* * *

"– all the stupid, irresponsible, reckless things," Pepper's still fuming as the plane takes off, chasing the sunset westward and back towards home. It's been a great afternoon, why not make it last even longer?

There's still dried salt in his hair, and the sheer white-hot panic of being in not just a crashed car but a _sinking_ one is still trembling through his body, but it's a wave he can ride a whole lot better than the splash that race car kicked up. It's a razor's edge he's soaring on, the shocked intensity where everything comes into focus, but it's _so much better_ than the darkness and the despair.

The pinwheeling moment when he'd known he'd lost control, and there was nothing left to do but go with it, to put his fate in the indifferent grip of physics and just _fly._ The smell of high-octane gasoline in the instant before it catches fire. That heartbeat the universe holds its breath before letting it out in a _whumph_ of heat and force. The sound, halfway between skittering and grinding, of tires losing their grip on the road like beating wings. They'd all vanished into the breathless silence in the instant right after his race car had gone through the railing, when it had seemed to hover in midair over the bay, like the most comfortable blanket of all spread out beneath car and driver turned weightless passenger.

He doesn't remember the crash. He remembers only vaguely the jolt of pure adrenaline as water had poured into the shattered cabin and he groped for the restraints, but even the half-formed memory is delicious.

"C'mon, Pep, anyone can flame out," he defends himself idly even as the grin fixed to his face says he regrets nothing. "It takes a special kind of skill to end up in the bay."

"A special kind of _stupid,_ maybe!" she flares at him. "My god, Tony, are you _trying_ to get yourself killed?"

 _Not in the least,_ he doesn't say. _I'm trying to remind my body what it is to live._

It's like those shock paddles they use in hospitals to restart hearts – defibrillators. Giving the body a big kick to jolt it back into what it should be doing. But Tony's trying to defibrillate his whole life, and he'll jolt along like Frankenstein's monster on a diet of nothing but the rush if he has to.

Right now, his pulse is pounding like a professional drum line, and he wants to put the suitcase suit back on and jump from the plane and fly, and _that's_ how he's meant to live!

Not creeping along watching a blood count he can't control. Not sneaking around calculating how much worse every move will make things. But doing mad things because they sounded like fun at the time, and turned out to be even _more_ fun, and getting to show off his work to make every jaw in Monaco and beyond drop. After the safety staff had pulled him from the harbor and Pepper had ripped him two or three new ones, and he'd gotten dried off and a totally stupid pair of stitches through the worst cut and a lecture about concussion, _of course_ he'd had to return to the track for the awards ceremony. _Of course_ he'd gotten the suitcase suit back from Happy, who's been guarding it all this time, and pretended like the trophy was too heavy to lift. And he'd had the suit assemble itself around him right there on stage so not Tony Stark, but _Iron Man_ , could be the one to present the winner's cup to the totally awestruck victorious driver.

A _good day._

"Not a chance," he answers Pepper, and beams at Loki, who's been rolling her eyes at him this whole time when she isn't prowling around the plane investigating things. Maybe if he asks nicely, and maybe bribes the woman, the contract pilot will teach her to fly the plane. There's no _possible_ way that can go wrong. "You saw that, right?" he can't help but ask her.

She shrugs, one-handed and dismissive. "I wondered the same as Pepper, for a time."

"Oh, for – seriously, it was just a bit of fun! I said I'd hang on until I found a fix, and I will, okay, but I can't live frightened." And just like that, his mood flip-flops as quickly as a race car. He hadn't been in any real danger, there'd been well-trained help right there the whole time, so why are they both snapping at him like he'd been climbing over the side of a bridge? "I'll be reckless if I damn well want to be, might not matter in the long run, right? Look, I'm not chasing a good death here, going down in flames. That's way too Frank Miller for me. Today is not a good day to die, I know, I know."

Pepper stops short, eyes going tight and focused. "What do you mean, hang on? What fix? Tony, what aren't you telling me?"

Oh. Right. He hasn't told Pepper about the palladium, or the timer he's racing against in a bitter echo of the pure fun of Monaco, because he couldn't face that look on her face…yes, that one there. The crumpled one like her world is falling apart and she doesn't know how to shore it up, full of concern – for him! – he still can't believe she finds him worthy of.

Unconsciously, his hand has gone over the arc reactor, a reflex he'd thought he'd gotten rid of, and it draws her attention at once.

"What's going on, Tony?" Pepper asks suspiciously, and "Don't you help him," to Loki.

One perfect black eyebrow goes up – Tony knows, because he'd looked over at Loki automatically, perhaps hoping for a quick assist from such a clever liar. Still as Lucy, she lounges back into her chair, fingers toying with the edges of her green sash, and stares back at him flatly.

"Your story," she mimics back to him, and Tony suppresses the urge to throw something at her. "Your problem."

But self-control is for other people, and Tony wads up a cocktail napkin and pitches it at her. It doesn't even make it halfway there, but she flicks a long finger towards it, arresting its dismal flight in mid-air. Almost nonchalantly, it unwraps itself, undulating strangely in no air currents that ever existed on this plane, and then shreds itself out of existence.

Tony scowls at her instead, and the display completely fails to distract Pepper, who keeps her focus on him and the excuse he doesn't have prepared, because y'know, he'd have told her once the problem was solved. He's a solutions guy.

"It's just a minor glitch with the arc reactor," he starts…but doesn't get much further, because in no time at all Pepper has the truth out of him and is panicking just like he didn't want her to, which is why he didn't tell her, dammit!

"No, I'm not dying," Tony sighs. "Not once I find a replacement for the palladium. Somewhere."

He knows the look in her eyes – in about three seconds, he's going to feel like a puddle of wet shit – but as she winds up to a new protest, Loki flows out of her seat in a single smooth motion and darts past them both, pacing on silent feet to the door into the next compartment.

She slams it open, and behind it, Natalie stands with a hand raised halfway, as if to knock. A strangled gasp escapes her throat at having the door unexpectedly yanked away.

"Ms. Rushman," Loki says coolly. "Was there something?"

"No, I, ah," Tony's new PA stutters and recovers as Loki steps aside, "was looking for Mr. Stark. I…wanted to know if I should invite your nine o'clock dinner party to your birthday party day after tomorrow? Since you're heading back stateside early?"

"Yep. Do that," Tony seizes on the distraction. "Tell 'em to bring the food along."

"Yes, sir," Natalie says, and retreats.

But that's knocked Pepper off the strafing dive she'd been about to make onto him, and so Tony is grateful to her…right up until Loki, still standing at the door and watching Natalie leave for what seems a very long time, says, "She's false."

"What?" both Tony and Pepper say in unison. "Jinx, you owe me a coke," Tony adds.

She ignores him. Both of them do.

"She's not what she says she is. She serves another master, and she's watching you." Loki sneers at him, disdainful. "You didn't know? Guard yourself better, pet. I'll protect you when I can, but I won't walk in your shadow every moment."

"How do you know?" Tony challenges her, thoughts already knocked into a new orbit. Who'd be watching him? Well, okay, stupid question, everyone's _watching_ him and that's just how he likes it, but who'd have the nerve and the resources to plant someone in his life so seamlessly, right under his nose?

Loki smiles wryly, no amusement in it at all. "Wolves know wolf scent." She says it like it's proverbial, and rolls her eyes when neither Tony nor Pepper respond. "She's like me, and I know that when I meet it. She works from the shadows, a schemer, a – what did you call it? – troubleshooter. She knew me, the same way."

"Perhaps in future we could leave the hiring to me," Pepper says, not quite sarcastically, which Tony ignores, too busy thinking.

 _SHIELD_ , is Tony's first guess. He _knew_ they were still out there, doing whatever the hell it is they do. That, or she's an agent of one of the governments that really, _really_ have a problem with Iron Man. Poisoning Tony Stark would be way easier than nuking Iron Man out of the sky. Damn, he hopes she's a SHIELD agent.

"Okay," he says, not even thinking to question Loki's judgment in this. Loki doesn't care about most humans enough to engage in acts of random petty sabotage. Er…except for irritating Vegas people who get on his nerves and break his magic tricks, or otherwise happen to be within range when he's in a bad mood. "Good to know. Thanks, Loki. But she stays. Better the spy we know about than the one we don't. I'll just watch what I say around her."

"That is a much better argument for keeping her on," is Pepper's comment, which Tony also ignores.

Instead, he kicks his feet back and rediscovers that the chairs recline all the way, which ends up with him on his back staring up at the plane's ceiling. "Dammit," he mutters. "I was having fun. Now I'm going to be thinking about this all the way home."

Fortunately, before Pepper can get back on track, Loki says, "Play with this, then."

She flips her hands around themselves – Tony sits up to watch this, always not boring, and Pepper stares – and something made of golden-yellow light and ragged metal materializes between them.

"What is that?" Pepper says as Loki sets it down. Tony's snatching it from her almost before it hits the tabletop.

"Looks like an arc reactor," he says aloud, mostly to himself. "But it can't be. It's not one of mine. This is –" He holds it up, torn metal edges of the device trailing, and stares into its yellow Cyclopean eye. "– almost like a different model, maybe?" The casing is cracked, and it's the work of a moment to pry the back off it. Familiar-smelling hot air wafts up from it, the taste of an Afghanistan cave, every molecule and ester slotting into the usual receptors on his tongue, as precise as a signature. "Still a palladium core…but this is very good. Almost an earlier draft of mine, kludged together from salvage maybe, or limited resources, but that's certainly possible. I didn't know there was anyone else in the world who could _do_ that. But this is very, very good."

Shaking himself free of its gaze, Tony looks up at the magician, who's leaning on the back of Pepper's chair, one elbow on the headrest and her other hand on the shoulder. It could be threatening, she could be looming over Pepper, but instead she's just watching him work with amusement. If there's anything ever _just_ about Loki.

He asks the 64,000 Dollar Question. "Where did you get this?"

"Found it," Loki says dismissively.

Okay… "Where?" Tony persists.

She looks away idly, which doesn't fool Tony for a second. "On a man."

"What man?" he demands. Pepper's looking from one of them to the other like a tennis match, like she's the net. She's never been caught in the middle of them like this. He probably wouldn't like it either. "And he just gave this to you?"

Looking beyond the impossibility of the foreign arc reactor, Tony notices the torn metal, the ripped-off wires, the wrenched-askew casing that he'd been able to pop off so easily. This isn't a power source in isolation, naked and innocent: it's part of something larger and more complicated, and he's not at all surprised when Loki answers, "No."

"What did you do, snatch it off his chest and run?"

She smiles, and Tony's heart – and okay, yeah, his cock too – pulses at the sight of the Real Smile on her face. "Something like that."

"Oh my god," Pepper breathes. "Is anyone hurt?"

The Real Smile fades like mist, smoothly gradual but very quick. "No," Loki reassures her. She sets one hand on Pepper's shoulder, very briefly, almost patting her quiet.

Pepper doesn't know Loki like Tony does, so it works. "Oh," she says. "Good."

"Hey, Pep?" Tony breaks in. "Can you give us a minute? Maybe see where Natalie's gone and keep her busy so I know she's not listening at the door?"

It's make-work, and Pepper knows it, and she's got better things to do, but Pepper Potts is a smart woman. She takes the totally unsubtle hint, and goes.

"Don't think that's going to work on me," he warns Loki when they've got the cabin to themselves. She's curled up back in her original seat, somehow managing to fold kilometers of long, slim legs in on themselves, catlike and so completely feminine that if Tony didn't _know_ the person sitting across the cabin was male most of the time, he never could have guessed Loki had ever been anything else. "So we're playing this game, are we?"

"What game?" Loki says, faux-innocently.

"How about Twenty Questions?" That might be the trick, he's come to suspect. No one's hurt, great. That will be the truth, but the _exact_ truth, and not even close to the whole truth. You have to ask follow-up questions, Tony knows now; have to pester Loki into a very precise corner.

"So, next question, princess," he challenges. "Is anyone _dead?_ "

Her eyes go flat. _Gotcha_. "Yes."

The temptation to bang his head into this table is overwhelming, but there's an arc reactor that shouldn't exist on it already. Dammit. He'd forgotten again. He'd brought a pretty girl on a high-flying vacation to a luxury event, and he'd forgotten that she was actually a millennium's worth of battle-hardened space Viking warrior, with a predator's smile and a knife ready and willing to strike.

He's got to stop doing that. But it's so easy to get caught up in the fun they have together, how happy he is with this person who might just be everything Tony has ever wanted, if only he can keep Loki for as long as he can. It's so easy to find movies Loki hasn't seen, and so Tony gets to see them again through his eyes like it's the first time. It's so exhilarating to spar with him, Iron Man armor against Asgardian strength and Loki's own magic, learning each other's steps and challenging each other to be better, every time. It's so goddamn erotic to be pinned down with his lover deep inside him on his own bed, thrashing and panting into Loki's skin and unable, at the last, to tell the fireworks blazing through his senses from the illusory stars of Asgard burning above their rutting, entangled bodies, knowing that in the afterglow, Loki will be there tracing his magician's hands across Tony's flushed and overstimulated skin, teaching him the constellations of that alien sky.

It's good, what they have, and if Tony thought he'd live out the year and get to keep this person he's so mad about, he'd be happy in ways he didn't think _existed._

None of it's a lie, as far as he knows, but it glosses over a deeper truth.

Loki's something else, from somewhere else, and when it comes right down to it, Loki scares the hell out of him.

"Who?" Tony grits out, rather than saying any of this.

Loki rolls her eyes, a portrait of boredom and disinterest. "I don't know."

"Why not?"

"He didn't tell me."

"And why is he dead?" Tony demands.

The façade falls like a balloon popping. "He meant to kill you," she snaps, voice cracking like a whip. "Also, he tried to kill _me_ when I challenged him."

 _Freaking Viking Klingons,_ man, Tony would like to go on record with that. "And that's where this comes from?" he persists, finding that his hand has tightened around the arc-reactor powered device, whatever it was meant to be before Loki tore it and its owner apart. "Where did he get it – oh, right, he didn't tell you. And your response was what, to knife him?"

He's being sarcastic; he shouldn't have been. "Yes," Loki answers, sounding baffled.

"What the fuck, man!"

Loki stares at him in pure confusion. "He meant to kill you," she reiterates, slowly and precisely, as if speaking to a rebellious child that just won't listen.

Tony stares back, realizing again how goddamn _alien_ Loki is sometimes. "Okay. New question," he goes on. "Did anyone see this?"

She snorts. "Of course not."

Seriously, what are these words coming out of his mouth? "…is anyone going to find the body?"

"No."

Tony thinks about this statement, and what he's seen Loki do; considers the uses Loki puts that incredible, impossible, unbelievable magic to almost on reflex. And says more words he never thought he'd say. "…where the fuck is the invisible corpse, Loki?"

She bares her teeth at him in an outright snarl. "Somewhere no one will ever find it. Why are you mad at me?" she deflects. "I don't understand. There was a threat. I dealt with it. You're welcome."

 _You just killed someone, and now I_ know _you did, and you don't understand why I'm upset?_

"We're going to talk about this," Tony warns her, because he doesn't think he can handle it right now. It's been too much of a day, even for him. It takes a _lot_ to be too much, but everything that's happened today is ganging up with a wave of exhaustion that feels like the energy of every cell in his body is draining out through the hole in his chest.

"Good," Loki snaps at him. "Maybe then you can explain it to me." For an instant, she blurs like a heat haze, and then it's the man, not the woman, in the reclining chair, sitting upright now and glaring just as fiercely. And still, Tony can't help but notice that the feminine suit has gained a handful of extra centimeters of fabric, but the cut is the same, and there are states in the US where being that gorgeous is _definitely_ illegal. He's abruptly too tired to deal with that right now, but boy, does he want to.

"There are things I cannot fight, Tony," Loki growls, voice reaching for those lower notes he's got back and dragging them out by the scruffs of their necks. "I cannot keep you from destroying yourself, however tempting the thought of keeping you bound and on your knees and mine may be. I am no healer, and I cannot change that. But those I can fight, I _will_ , and I will not lose you to some _idiot_ like that!"

And the only thing left for Tony to do is tremble, at once turned on and taken aback by how much he still doesn't understand this man he's brought into his life and fought so hard to keep there. Loki refuses to discuss anything further, storming away and blurring back into Lucy mid-step. He doesn't see her again for the rest of the flight back to California, and it's actually a relief to be able to lose himself in taking apart the strange arc reactor, spoils of a war over and done with before he realized it had begun.

Better than thinking about how very, very drunk he needs to get, the moment he has the chance.

* * *

"I told you," Tony groans, three mornings later, "I don't wanna join your super-secret boy band."

His party had been underwhelming, in the end. Maybe things might have been different if he'd thought it was his last birthday party; maybe he'd have said _to hell with it all_ and cut loose, cramming in every shot of madness he could before the lights went out, but instead he'd found himself looking around and thinking _I don't care about anyone here._ It'd been his party, and he'd just wished they'd all go away. Oh, there had been a couple of exceptions. Pepper had been there, probably keeping an eye on him just in case he dropped dead mid-word, and Rhodey had turned up, which had been the highlight of the evening, as far as Tony was concerned.

Now there's the far too early morning. Now there's the hangover.

Now there's waking up to a firm and unfamiliar knock at his bedroom door, which Tony had first ignored and then growled "Go 'way!" at, only to be startled fully awake by hands on his shoulders and strange faces gazing blankly down at him.

Now there are SHIELD agents standing around his house, not aggressively, but very _there._

Now there's goddamn Nick Fury sitting across from him at the house bar, amidst the debris and minor destruction of the party last night. _Who pissed in your Cheerios?_ Tony had almost asked, deciding that the expression on the chief spy's face was a scowl. Maybe he was projecting, or reflecting, or whatever, because Tony had certainly been scowling.

He hadn't said it though, because despite himself, he's a little bit spooked. He knows this is totally intentional.

They're in his _house_. They just walked in here through all his security – JARVIS isn't answering and every computer terminal Tony tried to tap awake stayed inert – and set up SHIELD Summer Camp.

"No, no, no," Fury says, "You do everything yourself and you've got it all under control. How's that working out for you?"

Tony wrinkles his nose and covers one eye with a hand. Not on purpose, but once it's there, he doesn't hesitate to play that up. "Sorry, I don't wanna get off on the wrong foot. Thought I'd put us on a more even field, maybe you'll return the favor…"

Fury uses Glare. It's super effective. Glare from concentrate. Et cetera.

"…and I gotta say, I'm still a bit hungover, I'm not sure if you're real or if I'm having a bad –"

"I am very real," growls Fury. "I'm the realest person you're ever gonna meet."

"Just my luck." Tony seriously considers putting his head down on the bar and hoping Fury takes the hint and goes away. What kind of spy would he be if he couldn't pick up on subtle signals?

Also, his head really hurts. He tries it.

He realizes too late – because he's hungover – that doing so exposes the skin of his neck, and that the evil palladium etching has gotten that far. Fury catches that subtlety right away.

"That high-tech crossword puzzle isn't looking so good," he comments.

Tony grunts, "Been worse," into the bar as the sound of sharp boots comes up behind him.

"We've secured the perimeter, sir," a familiar voice says without any trace of its former demure politeness.

"You're fired," Tony mutters, peeling himself up again. "Lucy said you were fake."

"Who is she, by the way?" says Natalie, or whoever she is, as she settles into a stance that manages to be both alert and ready, and completely relaxed, at Fury's elbow. "Facial recognition didn't come up with anything once I could get a viable image. That privacy field you gave her could make our jobs much more difficult."

"I live for that," Tony replies on automatic, having not understood a word of that last bit. Even if Loki were here, SHIELD wouldn't have a clue. Tony's so jealous of that invisibility-at-will thing. But Loki's back in Las Vegas, at least the last Tony heard from him. He's been working on something, preparing for Thor showing up, and his real workshop is still in Sin City. Somewhere. "And she's none of your business. Who the hell are you? Which is definitely my business, given that you're here."

"Tony, I want you to meet Agent Natasha Romanoff," Fury says, almost cheerfully.

Tony essays a sarcastic little wave.

"I'm a SHIELD shadow," the agent says. It's a really nice catsuit she's got going on there. "I was tasked to you by Director Fury after you came out as Iron Man."

Came out, hah. She has no idea. Or maybe she does. Superspies, and all. Bad thought. "Whatever you did to piss him off, I suggest you apologize. What the hell are you doing here? All of you. Here. At least Coulson had the manners to make an appointment. What do you want?"

"What do we want?" Fury repeats, voice incredulous, as Romanoff ghosts away. "The question is, what do _you_ want? You have a problem, a problem I have to deal with. You might believe you are the center of the universe, but you're very far from the center of mine. But you're still on my radar, and you're no good to anyone if you're dead. Hit him."

Tony automatically braces for a blow, but instead something sharp bites into his neck and there's a momentary feeling of pressure. Agent Romanoff moves away, and he raises his hand to the assaulted area. "Could you please not do anything awful for five seconds? What did she just do?"

His neck is itching abominably, like hot wires are being held right next to his skin, and he gives in and scratches at it. To his shock, he can feel the lines through his flesh – they feel like raised scars, only hard and almost metallic – receding, fading from touch.

"It's lithium dioxide. Gotta take the edge off so you can get to work," Fury says as Tony paws at his own skin disbelievingly.

Lithium, lithium – treats mania, lightest solid, rechargeable batteries, tons of uses. There's some in the suit's electronics. Totally useless as a palladium replacement, but Tony's not a healer either, why hadn't he thought to find a treatment better than that chlorophyll gunk? "Great, give me a couple of boxes, I'll be fine."

"It's not a cure," Romanoff says. "It just abates the symptoms."

"It's not that easy of a fix," is Fury's helpful contribution.

Tony snaps, "Trust me, I know, I'm good at this stuff. I've been looking for a replacement for the palladium, I've tried every combination, every permutation, every element."

"I'm here to tell you, you haven't tried them all."

* * *

Fury eventually leaves, and leaves Tony with his head spinning and a serious load of doubt. He'd said that the reactor was unfinished technology, that Howard had intended to take it further, and that even what Tony had managed to do, miniaturizing it and making it more efficient, hadn't been enough. He'd said that there was a next step.

Even more unbelievably, he'd said that Howard had thought that _Tony_ would be the one with the ability to take that step, which is pure nonsense, because Howard had never believed in his son about _anything_.

Completely unbelievably, Fury said that wasn't true, and that he'd known Howard well enough to know that, and that Howard had been one of the founders of SHIELD. In which case, thanks pops, you couldn't have written "ignore Tony, continuing the grand Howard Stark tradition" into their charter?

And then he'd locked Tony in his room with homework.

Well, not quite, but the house is on lockdown, patrolled by SHIELD agents. Coulson's here, assigned to babysit Tony and not mincing any words about it. He'd better not be serious about that Taser. Why doesn't anyone understand what a serious electric shock could do to Tony's ravaged heart? He's got JARVIS back, but his phone privileges have been taken away with a vengeance. He can't even hack his way out through the many back channels he's got set up in the depths of the internet.

He could try painting SOS on the roof. If he had any paint. And if there wasn't a SHIELD agent up there too.

And there's a pile of boxes labeled PROPERTY OF H. STARK waiting for him.

Tony camps out in his garage workshop – slightly less garagy now after the remodel – and digs through the past. Does he even have anything that will play those '74 Expo film reels?

He does, it turns out, and he gets most of the way through setting the projector up and spooling the reels onto it before getting distracted.

It's strange to see the blueprints for the original arc reactor, the one that he and Pepper blew up last year, in person. He's so used to this stuff being online, ready to become an interactive projection with a word to JARVIS. Stranger still is the second name on the blueprint.

Who the hell is Anton Vanko?

The newspapers preserved in the box answer that question for him, and Tony says, "JARVIS, see what else you can find on this guy, more recently," as ancient newsprint crackles in his fingers. He reads about Vanko's deportation from the United States in 1967, back to the USSR, under suspicion of espionage.

" _His career never recovered,"_ JARVIS reports. _"He worked for various Soviet scientific divisions – the details remain classified – but was sent to Siberia until the collapse of the Soviet Union."_

"Guess his work wasn't up to snuff."

" _Perhaps. An obituary for him was filed last year."_

"Huh." Tony eyes the craggy, bitter face JARVIS is projecting into the half-darkness Tony's chosen to work in, poor compensation for the bright morning that's probably turned into a brighter day. Time and a goddamn gulag had done bad things to the man in the newspaper photo. "Anything else?"

A new face appears alongside older Vanko. The man has long hair with stress-white highlights, and a permanent glower beneath a high forehead. Put ten kilos on him, and he'd have bulldog jowls drooping over that simple mustache. He looks like a wrestler, and probably Vanko's son.

JARVIS confirms that. _"Survived by his son, Ivan Vanko. Also a physicist. Convicted of selling weapons-grade plutonium to Pakistan. Fifteen years in Kopeisk prison. No further records."_

"That's him."

Tony very nearly puts another hole in the workshop roof, but from below this time. His heart slams into overdrive as he jerks out of his chair and manages not to fall over the open box. _"Fucking hell_ , Loki, don't make me pull out the paintball gun again."

"Don't you dare." Loki materializes out of the darkness, stepping around the clutter of blueprints and newspaper articles and photographs and the notebook that Tony's going to get to next. He eyes Tony warily, but stays visible when the paintball gun is nowhere to be seen. It's under the sink, probably – Tony has to keep hiding it.

Damn, Tony wishes he could walk past all those SHIELD agents so easily. He doesn't for a second think that Loki will be able to help him solve the "riddle" of the arc reactor's core, but he's just happy to have his magician back with him again.

"Yeah, well, it's the only way to know if you're around sometimes." Look at him, taking Loki's magic in stride – also, the paintball gun had been a stroke of genius, and no one can convince him otherwise. "What do you mean, that's him?" Tony takes another look at the heavy-set, glowering face. There isn't a standard-model physicist look, but if he'd met that guy in the street, his first thought would not have been 'That guy's a physicist!'

Of course, it's not like he'd looked at Loki and thought 'That guy's an alien!' so there's really no telling.

"The man in Monaco," Loki elaborates, completely matter-of-fact, "who tried to kill you. That language is Russian, then? Interesting. Curious sounds."

Tony blinks at him, then at the image, as that sinks in. This is the man Loki killed for him. This is the man who might have been his enemy, because –

"Howard deported his dad. Well, the government did, but same difference. Howard pretty much owned the government around then. And if he didn't get the credit –" Tony scrambles for the original blueprint, knowing that the name _Anton Vanko_ had not been on the digital ones, his contributions erased. "– and couldn't replicate the results, then…" He trails off.

"Howard ruined him. And his son came after me on a vendetta. No wonder he could build a miniaturized arc reactor. And then he ran into you." Tony grimaces. "Loki, at some point we're gonna have to talk about use of deadly force on humans. It's not okay, and it's not fair."

"I don't play fair," Loki repeats, dismissing him completely. "No, we're not."

Tony literally doesn't have time for this. "Pass me that notebook?"

* * *

He loses himself in the research notes for a while, paging past the Einstein field equations and lab anecdotes and trial run reminders (plus a few personal ones) and a new-then elaboration on the Stark Effect. It looks like the name is a coincidence, but Tony's forgotten most of Pepper's genealogy research except for the bit about the tiger lady. He lays the blueprints out across the floor and traces them line by line, circuit by circuit, holding them up to the light to see if anything had been erased.

The whole time, he feels like he's retracing not only his own steps, but Howard's steps, and apparently, Anton Vanko's steps as well. He can see where they went wrong, why it had to be so big and inefficient the first time. Part of that is just that the technology is better now. He can refine the elements and alloys further, and the circuitry has kept chasing Moore's Law down and eating it.

But this is what he's got, and just having all this material to work with gives him hope. Even if it's futile, it's better than waiting around hoping Loki's people will A) turn up in time and B) be willing to help a puny mortal who's been aiding and abetting – not to mention sleeping with – their rogue prince.

What is Asgard's policy on that?

Loki himself appears in Tony's peripheral vision every so often. Some of the time he's been sitting quietly in one of the chairs, working patterns into a piece of metal the length of Tony's forearm with a stylus. Sometimes Tony will look up at the end of a notebook page and find he's not there, and when he checks again Loki will have returned from prowling around the house invisibly, keeping an eye on SHIELD agents, maybe sizing them up as threats.

They've got to have that talk. They're probably not going to. Loki's very good about not having conversations he doesn't want to, as witness the "Why do you have to leave me?" one Tony's been trying to have with him quite futilely. For one thing, Tony's not sure that he'll win that one, and doubt is better than despair.

The notebook ends on too many blank pages. None of it is any help, and Tony resists the urge to throw it aside.

Instead, he starts up the film reel.

"Movies got a lot easier over the past thirty-some years," he says as an aside to Loki, who's snapped his fingers at his project, leaving it under a humming, glowing green forcefield, so that he can devote all his attention to being puzzled by the contraption.

"Is _that_ what this is?"

"And hey, look who that is," Tony says without enthusiasm as the picture stops juddering and settles into some kind of focus.

" _Everything is achievable through technology,"_ Howard Stark says. _"Better living. Robust health. And for the first time in human history, the possibility of world peace."_

Old news. "I thought about using some of this for my keynote speech at the Expo next month," he says over the video, as Howard shows off his model. "Pepper hired some really good archivists. They even found me the model he's playing with, when I asked. They got me a digital copy of this. Wasn't this rough, though." This is more of a blooper reel, it seems, with many false starts and unedited asides. Man, Tony knows Howard wasn't perfect, but there's some good _schadenfreude_ in seeing him mess up on video repeatedly.

Head just a bit on one side as he watches Howard pace around his video set, decades ago, Loki observes quietly, "You hated him."

"… _all of us at Stark Industries, I would like to personally – Tony, what are you doing back there?"_

The Tony in the present twitches, attention snapped back to the video. "Sometimes," he says bitterly. "That – he was like that all the time."

In the projected image, Howard scolds his son, _"Put that back. Put it back where you got it from. Where's your mother? Maria? Go on. Go. Go, go, go,_ " and small Tony is hustled away.

"It's kind of…scarred over, by now. After the crash, I…I was kind of a mess. Didn't know what to do, what to feel, who I was gonna be without him and Mom. At least when he was alive, I had someone to push against. Fury says he believed in me, but that's bullshit. He never told me he loved me, he never even told me he liked me." The words choke in his throat. "And then sometimes… Y'know, I was a science and tech geek from the cradle. But if he'd said he made the sun come up every day, if someone had told me he'd put the moon in its orbit, I'd have believed it, because I wanted him to be just that wonderful."

He manages to look over at Loki, as the video plays on and Howard gets progressively sillier through multiple glasses of whiskey – yay, the drinking is hereditary – and finds his magician with his arms wrapped around himself and shoulders hunched defensively, not looking at Tony either. "And you try, and you try," Loki says. "And it's never enough. It's never you. You're never good enough."

"Yeah," is all Tony can manage.

"And every once in a while, there's a chance – he says something that's almost praise, and it's all worth it." Tony can't name the note in Loki's voice, but boy, does he know it.

Aren't they a pair. Send in the clowns, and all that.

"Yours too, huh?"

" _Tony."_

Tony doesn't see it himself, but he's willing to bet that Loki startles just as much as he does, as Howard looks out of the past and speaks to him, from this uncut tape that never made it into the family archives because SHIELD had it all along.

" _You're too young to understand this right now, so I thought I would put it on film for you. I built this for you."_ Screen-Howard gestures at the model, the model that's sitting in Tony's former office right now, if he remembers rightly. Some stuff has happened since then. _"And someday you'll realize that it represents a whole lot more than just people's inventions. It represents my life's work. This is the key to the future. I'm limited by the technology of my time, but one day you'll figure this out. And when you do, you will change the world."_

What the hell does the toy City of Tomorrow have to do with anything? But it was in this box, right? It might be relevant. Right?

It's a thread to pull on, at least. One more chance. One more path to keep moving down, because it's more important to keep moving than to know where he's going.

" _What is and always will be my greatest creation,"_ screen-Howard says, _"is you._ "

And the tape runs out.

* * *

"Okay," Tony says, later. "That model is actually in my…guess it's Pepper's office, now. Got any ideas about how to get past the superspies' perimeter, magician?"

Loki snorts like Tony's questioning his skills. Which he sort of is, but not really. "Barely worth the name."

He reaches into a pocket, saying, "The forgery I'm working on will only stay – on hold, you'd say – for so long, which is why I brought it with me. I can't leave it right now. But some time ago, I made this for you."

It's one of Loki's enchanted leather bracelets, and Tony takes it from him curiously. "What does it do?"

"What are you forever chiding me for?" Loki grins, taking him by the shoulders and turning him to face the window. The sun's at an odd angle and Tony can clearly see their reflections. "Close that clasp –" there are two. "– and it stays on. Close the other…"

Tony closes it. "And?"

"And look."

Tony looks; he doesn't have much choice, as Loki's cupped his chin in one hand and has pointed his face towards the window, which is reflecting exactly one person, and it isn't Tony.

"Holy shit," Tony says, "I'm invisible."

The jailbreak is temporarily put on hold while Tony runs around to various mirrors and howls with laughter at the sight – or not – of himself popping in and out of visibility as he opens and closes the bracelet's clasp.

"It doesn't work on me," Loki cautions him, not looking all that worried – and looking straight at Tony, even though it's "on". "I know when my own magic is in play. I could walk around Las Vegas with my eyes closed, just by the signals of my spells, were there no people to crowd its streets."

Very nearly giggling, Tony makes himself visible again and…yeah…throws himself at Loki, hugging his magician in pure and absolute glee. "You know rings are more traditional, right?" he can't resist pointing out. Loki's read _Lord of the Rings_ , he's already determined; they watched the movies together.

"Too much narrativium," Loki says without hesitation.

" _I can't believe you just said that!_ " Tony blurts out, pretty sure his jaw has actually dropped, based on the way Loki's smirking at him. "I _adore_ you."

Loki laughs, kisses his cheek, and whispers in his ear, "Asgard's flat. More or less."

"WHAT." Tony pulls away and collapses to the floor as overdramatically as possible, and he _knows_ overdramatic. "No. Just…no. Dammit. You're serious." Loki nods, and Tony puts his hands over his ears.

"I'm so glad I didn't hear you say that," he announces, "because then I'd actually have to eat Pratchett's hat. He'll make me do it. Dammit, me and my mouth, and you and your…you-ness."

Snickering, Loki offers him a hand, which Tony accepts, and pulls him to his feet. "Go on, then."

* * *

Tony resists the urge to randomly molest SHIELD agents on the way out of the house, and while he vaguely regrets not getting to see them chase down a car apparently driving itself, it's more than made up for by finding out that the _whole car_ turns invisible when Tony wraps an arm around the driver's side door and keeps the bracelet in contact with the metal. Apparently, Loki thought of that.

Not that he drives the wholeway to the main campus invisibly.

Have you _met_ California traffic?

* * *

It's not a model of a city.

It's a model of an _atom_ , hidden beneath shrubbery and small ponds and footpaths and parking lots, and Tony takes apart and reassembles the manipulatable projection JARVIS recreates for him with a laugh of pure disbelief bubbling in his throat.

"Dead since I was seventeen," Tony says, as the atom's electron shells and the structure of the protons and neutrons explode out around him, because otherwise he's going to throw his arms wide and yell " _Science!_ " and then Loki, watching from the doorway, will have an excuse to laugh at him again. He brings his hands together again, and the atom shrinks down to something he can imagine holding in the palm of his hand. "Still taking me to school."

" _The proposed element should serve as a viable replacement for palladium,"_ JARVIS says.

And for the first time in decades, Tony says, "Thanks, Dad," and actually means it.

* * *

JARVIS says the new element is impossible to synthesize.

Tony says, "Mwahahahaha," and sets about building a particle accelerator in his basement, like a sane and totally normal person who didn't just do the mad scientist laugh.

This means breaking up a lot of things for parts, tearing up the concrete floor of the lab to get at one of the generators and haul it up into the light where he can hook it up to the tubes – no, not the Internet, they're actual tubes; Loki doesn't get the joke – knocking holes in the ceiling so he can run cables through it, and smashing down walls to make room. It's crude and loud and violent and destructive, and he's making a huge mess, and Tony loves it.

Also, it's great to have someone around who, when Tony says, "I need to get this wheel to move, but I don't have the leverage," can take the wrench out of his hand, stick it through the spokes, and shove it into motion one-handed.

Asgardian super-strength, yeah!

Agent Coulson comes in while they're trying to get the accelerator coils to lie level, which in practice means piling up heaps of stuff to set the pipes on and arguing about which of them is at fault for making various stacks too high/too low. This is a seriously grungy particle accelerator. Any second now, CERN is going to call him up and complain, at which point Tony will sic them on the idiots who vetoed the Superconducting Supercollider down in Texas back in the nineties with the evidence of how easy it actually is to build one cheaply.

…cheaply for Tony, okay? He had this stuff in his lab already, he just hadn't needed an accelerator until now. And he's probably not going to keep this one. It's taking up too much space even in the expanded workshop complex that's down here now.

Although, is the SSC site still on the market?

"What are you doing?" Coulson demands, and then, "What is this?"

"Stuff," Tony says. It's off-balance again, just by a couple centimeters. He whacks the pipes with his spirit level, probably not a good idea, and looks around.

Loki's nowhere to be seen, although he was right there a second ago. Mwahahahaha again. Coulson's dug something extremely red-white-and-blue out of a box. "What's this doing here?" the agent demands.

"Perfect," Tony says, waving him and the half-assembled shield over. It's not the real one. The real one was lost back in the forties along with its extremely red-white-and-blue square-jawed noble blond owner. "Bring that here. I need it."

Coulson fusses about the shield being used to prop up the accelerator, but not about being drafted in to lift the coil. The man has weird priorities; the coil is heavy. But Coulson's made Tony's favorite lab assistant of all time disappear momentarily, so he'll have to fill in for now.

"Perfectly level," Tony confirms with the spirit level. "I'm busy, whaddya want?"

"Nothing. Goodbye. I've been reassigned."

"Secret stuff?"

"Something like that. Good luck."

Coulson leaves, and Loki reappears almost ten minutes later to report that _all_ the SHIELD agents are gone, which is great, because then Tony can go back to building and, not coincidentally, saving his own life.

* * *

At the end of the day…next morning…there's a smoking line cut through Tony's wall along with the holes he'd meant to put there – time for another rebuild! There are pieces of piping, shards of metal and concrete, and a disturbing amount of bubble wrap everywhere. There's the world's most ad-hoc miniature particle accelerator of all time, cooling down from its first and wildly successful run.

There's something new under the sun, glowing blue in a tidy little triangle that slots into the arc reactor, accepted without so much as a blip.

And when Tony swaps them out, it feels like coming back to life.

Third time, still lucky.

"Beautiful," says Loki, fingertips brushing against the bright, new, electric blue reactor.

Tony's sweaty and exhausted and covered in work grime, but they both kind of are. It's extremely satisfying, and he can't help but pull Loki in and kiss him out of absolute delight and the knowledge that he's going to live, and they have time.

* * *

 _To be continued._

 **Author's Note:** Narrativium is a concept from the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett, who was famous for wearing a most excellent Author Hat and being the greatest comedic fantasy genius of all time. (Piers Anthony, I will fight you.) On Discworld, narrativium is the element of Story, or more relevantly, the _weight_ of Story, which says _things will happen this way because that's the way the story goes_ ; much of Discworld's humor comes from the way characters both exploit and defy "what's supposed to happen when…" What Loki said was "Nah. It's been done." (Also, he's been living in the Wedding Capital of the World for years; he cannot be ignorant of the human symbolism of rings.)


	15. Rain Man

ON WITH THE SHOW!

 **Chapter Fifteen: Rain Man**

Above, the entire universe spins, falling away into forever, just waiting to be explored. Light that set out across the universe millennia ago streaks down through the atmosphere, finding an ending at last in Jane's eyes, and she can't look away.

And of course, it's not the stars above that are spinning, as much as she imagines that she can see them shifting across her field of vision. She almost can; she knows this sky better than she does the streets of little Puente Antiguo. But she's the one that's spinning, held to the surface of this tiny spheroid, slingshotted along the lip of the gravity well of the sun. Flat on her back on the roof of the van, or at least as sprawled-out as she can get with the dish's base digging into her back and the spectrometer crowding her feet, she still wants to hang on.

There's nothing like the desert at night. It's as close as she can get to infinity and weightlessness, but with the safety of Earth's mass right beneath her, and the atmosphere throwing in those illusory twinkles, stars winking back at her. It's like being inside a dream, rocked in the cradle of the Earth.

Jane loves nights like this. The near-silence, the almost-stillness, the tentative peace. Even all those qualifiers, thanks to Darcy grumbling on the edge of audibility in the van beneath her, are reminders that it's not an empty and heartless universe out there. At least in this little corner of the universe, there's life. There are people who wonder about the world outside their own heads and their own bodies, and there are people who ask why and how.

There are people who want to be around her, even if it's the middle of the night and it's gotten desert-darkness cold, not cool enough for Jane to see her breath, but enough that she appreciates her sweater.

She wants the intrusive sun to never come up. It's too loud, too close. It drowns out everything Jane's searching for. She wants to slow the Earth's rotation so that she can have a few more hours with the not at all silent stars, a happy mote of dust suspended in the beams of distant suns.

Also, there's a particle detector humming right next to her head, sniffing at the sky and whining like an anxious tracker dog that's not quite sure if it's got something. At first, it was shiny and new and almost embarrassingly nicer than the rest of her equipment. Then Jane got to work customizing it, somewhat aided by frustratingly vague comments over a video call. Someone (there's a very small suspect pool) has labeled it a thoroscope. In permanent marker.

"Maybe it was a glitch?" Prime Suspect Number One suggests from the passenger seat of the van. If Jane looks to one side, she can see a pair of Converse dangling out of the window. "I'm gonna check on it."

The shoes vanish, the door opens, and Jane finds herself staring into Darcy's face. "Hiya. Comfy?"

"Yes."

"Darcy, don't mess with it," Erik scolds from the driver's seat. "Where's your camcorder?"

"Dashboard." Her intern bites back a tiny yawn and retreats with a mutter of, "Okay, okay."

The particle detector keeps humming, and Jane places a hand against it, feeling the deep scrape in the casing where Erik had tried to lever it open with a screwdriver. No more than a week in their possession – it's the most recent arrival – and it's already starting to look like the homemade equipment Jane had built before the weirdest commission she's ever been on fell out of the sky, almost literally.

She still can't get her head around having the supplies and resources now, and that she's probably going to get to hang on to them. Either tonight's readings were a glitch, and this is not the night they serve as a welcoming committee for an alien prince from another dimension, and they're going to still need the resources Stark is shoveling at them…or it _is_ , and the aliens are about to land, and they'll probably get to keep it all because they did what they were hired to do.

The equipment is the manageable bit, that she can think about without her mind completely boggling and throwing up its imaginary hands in disbelief.

Jane's life took a weird turn at some point, and the dean of physics is definitely going to sigh and ask herself if she really thinks Jane and the university are a good fit. Again.

Well, if the dean fires her, maybe she can join up with Stark's Mars mission and get him to reroute some of his rocket launches towards the far side of the moon, where she and _so many_ of her colleagues dream of building an observatory without interference from atmosphere or Earthshine.

And if all goes well, there's even _nicer_ equipment waiting for her somewhere in Nevada. If the near-impossible does happen like Stark and his peculiar friend want it to, if the uneasy chattering from the – dammit, Darcy – thoroscope means what they hope it does. If an Einstein-Rosen bridge is really going to open somewhere nearby and spit someone out, and if she and her friends can get him to that small Nevada town.

That's an awful lot of ifs.

But that's science.

Science is also waiting, and Jane is happy to wait if she can lie here and watch the stars for a little longer. And if the readings burbling down from the receiver to Erik's laptop are a glitch, then that's what they are.

Right now, there's the endless night sky.

Still, as the van rocks beneath her – feels like Darcy climbing into the back, if the _pop-hiss_ of an opened can is any indication, and the slight echo on her comment of "Look at that wiggly line wobbling all over the place. See? Crash." – the past couple of weeks itch at her.

"We're being watched," Erik had said, last week.

"Uh, what?" Darcy had answered through a mouthful of pancake. "By who? Are they guys, are they cute –"

"I don't know," Erik had mostly ignored her, speaking to Jane as she dragged her tired gaze away from her reflection in the toaster. "But I've worked under military supervision before, and it felt like this. You feel the eyes on you. That tickle on the back of your neck, you know?"

Stupid toaster. Should have asked for a new one and called it vital scientific equipment. "Who'd be watching us?" Jane had asked. "My research isn't exactly a hot topic. And it's not like it's going to make anyone a profit."

Erik had scowled. "You never know. And is it just me, or have there been a lot more strangers knocking on the door looking for coffee?"

"Yeah, I was thinking," Darcy had broken in, "what if, like, I got an espresso machine and just _sold_ those poor lost souls coffee, like on the side?"

"No," Jane had said absentmindedly.

"But whipped cream, Jane, we could have whipped cream all the time…" Darcy, inspired, had spent the rest of lunchtime-breakfast talking about all the different kinds of coffee she'd ever had; Jane had listened for _black, plain_ and not heard it. She'd only been knocked out of that tangent by Jane teaching her how to recalibrate the ionization chamber, which had taken both of them all day to put back together, in the end.

"What do you think?" Erik says now, a shadow standing on the van's floor in the New Mexico midnight.

"About the glitch?" Jane wraps a hand around one of the struts anchoring the thoroscope's ride-along box to the van's roof. Erik had winced as he'd drilled the bolts through the metal, but they were never selling this van for more than scrap anyway. The sharp ends, on the inside, are wrapped up in unbelievable amounts of duct tape. The metal hums beneath her hand. "Give it time."

"No. Well, yes," Erik amends quickly. "But about all this. I mean, this is crazy, right?" He makes an unhappy noise somewhere in his throat and folds his arms on the roof. "Viking gods from outer space. The Rainbow Bridge, or a controllable Einstein-Rosen bridge, I don't know which one sounds more ridiculous. The god of thunder and the god of mischief, and us in the middle of whatever fight they're having."

Jane sighs. "It sounds like nonsense. Maybe it is. But then, so much does, at first." She smiles up at the endless sky, and thousands of stars wink back at her. "If there's math behind spooky action at a distance, then maybe there's science behind what Loki can do, and the man we're waiting for."

Darkness or not, she doesn't miss Erik's flinch. "What?"

"It's just…" He trails off, unhappily. "Okay, I can accept that the legends might not all be true. I get that. But he's trouble, Jane. I'm sure of it. In the stories, he's a menace barely under control, and he doesn't stay controlled. He ends up the villain. He's one of the destroyers, at the end of the world."

Jane can't think what to say in response, but she doesn't have to, because Erik goes on, "I'll actually be glad if we find someone who claims to be Thor. Thor's the hero of all his stories. If we're going anywhere near anyone calling himself Loki, I want a Thor on our side to protect you two."

"Aw, seriously, Erik?" Darcy chimes in, head lolling out of the passenger-side window now. "Not cool."

"Get your shoes off my seat, Darcy."

Darcy grumbles and tosses her can of soda into the back of the van. "That's sweet, Erik," Jane says instead. "But we're not looking for trouble. Nobody needs protecting, and this isn't a fairy tale. We're scientists and if this thing will make up its mind," She smacks the detector, fondly enough. "we're drivers. That's all. And whatever their game is, whatever's going on, we'll get out of their way and let them at it."

Which is when the thoroscope's hum pitches up so strongly that Jane can feel it through her bones.

Which is when Darcy yelps, "The computer's doing something!"

Which is when, in the corner of her vision, something ripples across the stars.

A distortion, Jane thinks at first, like her vision is swimming, and then a darkness, like the stars are going out. But there's color there, an aurora far south enough to make _borealis_ a joke, and it flickers like lightning across the clouds on the horizon, drawn up out of nowhere. At this range, they look almost like the tall mesas in the distance, shadows hovering against the dark sky. Movement churns in their hearts, sullen flashes only slightly brighter than the deeper darkness, but once Jane's spotted them, she can't look away.

Neither can Erik, head turned to follow her gaze, and for a moment they just stare as the sky thrashes and the thoroscope sings.

The trance is broken by Darcy shouting, "Are we going, or what?" and then Erik is diving back into the driver's seat and slamming the door.

"Go, go, go!" Jane yells, never mind that she's still on the roof – the fear of missing her chance is a knot in her throat. All the scientific equipment around her, strapped and bolted to the van, looms like a disapproving thesis committee, asking why she isn't ready _already_.

Erik doesn't even stop to ask, flooring the gas pedal and taking off across the desert, chasing that sudden tangle of light and cloud as it swirls and spins, an atmospheric phenomenon so far beyond what Jane was ever searching for.

It's a rough and wild ride, as the van bounces over rocks and blazes its own path, and Jane fights to close her mouth from its awed gape before she bites into her tongue. She can only hang on and hope that Darcy's got her camcorder out, that all the machines are working and not jolted into stunned blindness, that she's not going to fall off this stupid roof because what is she _doing_ , surfing across the desert like some crazy adrenaline addict? But she's the best kind of captive audience, and the repeated thuds of impact against her ankles and thighs are meaningless, because the abrupt, intrusive clouds have tangled themselves together into an ominously whirling knot, spreading out like a canopy towards the little van and Jane's staring eyes.

 _Faster, faster!_ Jane wants to whoop, and the words ram straight into the matching howl of _Careful, steady, keep it level!_ that can't get out of her throat because there's an expanding bubble of pure awe in the way.

Her hands are already numb and her teeth feel like they're going to be jarred out of her head as the van sideswipes a mesquite tree and promptly lurches through a gully, bucking like an out-of-control horse. But she gets hold of the bracing and wraps her own small weight around the primary particle detector, trying to keep the thoroscope fixed on the impossible funnel cloud descending from the cloud cover.

The closer they get, the more she wants to get closer still and get every bit of raw data out of it, but she's still relieved when Erik throws the van into a wide arc, swerving far around the perimeter of the phenomenon.

Sand flies from the tires and from the churning, impossible storm, but Jane can't even spare a free hand to keep it from her eyes. Blinking is a stupid reflex; it cuts down on the moments she can _see_ –

And then she has no choice but to close them, instincts wrenching her head away, as a light so bright it seems to _roar_ spears down out of the sky, straight through the heart of that funnel cloud, and slams into the tormented earth.

It's bright enough to burn, when Jane fights to look at it, but it's too wonderful to look away from. The ghosts of colors, bursting across her retinas, are a poor and pale shade of the rich, intricate cascade – a rainbow more energetic than anything Earth's atmosphere could ever conjure, and a beam of pure force.

No wonder the Very Large Array had heard this as a scream! Even at this distance, the pure force of it drowns out the rest of the universe, and in that overfull moment, Jane laughs with absolute delight into it, unheard but unstoppable.

She _wasn't_ crazy, and she _wasn't_ wrong!

It's new and different and wonderful, and _she's here_ to see it with her own half-blinded eyes. She can taste the ionization of the air, atoms ripped apart and recombining into ozone, on her tongue.

It tastes like lightning.

And it stops.

The world without it is almost unreal. Everything else is insubstantial, insignificant, washed away by that bright waterfall of light and color and energy. There's a moment when she can't hear herself think, and when she feels like she's floating. The van beneath her and the aches she just knows are building in her abused bones are too far away to matter.

"Everyone OK?" she manages to croak out on the fourth attempt, and waits to hear the voices of both her friends before she asks, "Anything broken?"

"Don't know," Erik says.

"Machines, or bones?" Darcy wants to know. "I'll let you know."

But Jane can't take her eyes off the place where the bridge – the Bifrost, Loki and Erik had both called it – had shone. Is there movement out there, a shadow behind the floating lights still fading from her overstimulated eyes? If one highly unlikely possibility could be true, could the rest of it be real?

Could it all be real?

Is there someone out there?

Normally, she hates the lighting rig because it ruins her night vision, but that's hardly a problem now. "Lights up," Jane calls out in warning to her friends, but loud enough to be heard beyond the van. Just in case. She fumbles for the dimmer switch, sliding it carefully, slowly upward.

The small but mighty lights wrapped around the upper part of the van like super-Christmas lights power up, casting a bubble of illumination in all directions.

"Okay. Okay," Jane says to herself, very quietly. "You can do this." Louder, she calls out, "Hello? Is anybody there?"

Silence from the desert, and the darkness.

No, that sounds stupid. But so does every "Welcome to Earth" speech she's ever heard or read, and hell, maybe there's no good thing to say in a situation like this. She can't even lead with the time-honored "We come in peace", because this is her planet, and whoever's out there, if there's anyone out there, is the newcomer. But maybe that's the best option, after all.

"We're friendly!" she calls. "Hello! If you can hear me, if you can understand me, please answer so I know you're there!"

Further silence from the darkness all around, and then –

"Well met!" a loud, cheerful voice booms. "Who calls Thor of Asgard?"

For a second, Jane thinks she's about to fall off the roof in shock. It's real. It's all real.

"How come the people of Midgard to stand awaiting my arrival, night as it is?" the man's voice goes on, sounding puzzled but not all that bothered, and still completely fearless.

"We saw the light," Jane blurts out, which is stupid but not untrue. "It's very bright."

"Aye, the Bifrost is powerful," the newcomer agrees matter-of-factly, and steps into the van's lights.

Three weeks ago, as the scientific equipment Stark had acquired for them had started arriving at the lab, Jane had called her unlikely benefactor to check in, and they'd ended up talking all of it over on video chat, her laptop migrating from table to floor to chair to countertop as Jane pointed it at things. Stark learns absurdly fast, and at some point in between visiting her lab and buying her new toys, he'd managed to start sounding like an expert, so that she forgot, for a brief but pleasant hour or so, that she wasn't talking to a colleague.

And then she'd looked back at the screen, and spotted a shadow in the background, someone in the room but not participating in the conversation.

"Is that Loki?" she'd asked. "Can I talk to him for a moment?"

" _Sure,"_ Stark had shrugged. _"Probably."_ And over his shoulder, _"Loki, she's asking for you."_

It was very, very bizarre to look at the screen of her laptop and realize that the man leaning over Stark's shoulder, nonchalantly and totally comfortable in his space – Darcy may be right about them, which is astonishing – was an alien. Talking to her on Skype.

SETI's going to eat their own hands in frustration.

"So how do I know if it's your brother who shows up?" she'd asked. "I mean, how do I know it's not just someone calling himself Thor?"

The description Loki had given her had run to large, blond, probably in heavy armor – _"No, not like Tony's. More decorative. Don't be fooled. This one –"_ And he'd glanced at Stark, who'd rolled his eyes with a smirk. _"– has yet to get through mine. And he'll be carrying a warhammer, blocky and powerful. Mjolnir. Thor's the only one who can wield it."_

The man who's just stepped into the light, moving in an easy, confident, assertive stride, matches that description perfectly. He's tall and solidly built, athletic in the way of high-octane impact sports. Absolutely enormous shoulders taper down only slightly to a muscular torso, barely hidden by twining silver armor, almost ornamental, over blueish leather, and an honest-to-goodness billowing red cape. Someone has never seen _The Incredibles_. He's got a nice, symmetrical face, open and friendly, shoulder-length blond hair and a rugged jaw with a fringe of beard, like he's been camping in the wilderness and hasn't bothered with little things like haircuts or shaving, but neat and tidy. Even in the artificial lighting, he's got very blue eyes.

And a fantastic smile, which totally draws Jane's eyes away from the, yes indeed, very heavy-looking mallet-like hammer he's carrying one-handed, a strap wound around the scaled mail guarding his wrists and arms.

Oh, Jane realizes.

Of course a brother would fail to mention that the man he'd sent them to find was _gorgeous._

She's not the only one to notice, either. "Oh my god," Darcy mutters, and Jane accidentally-on-purpose kicks her intern in the head and isn't remotely sorry.

"Focus!" she hisses at the admittedly very focused look on Darcy's face, and hopes her own doesn't look the same way. Where _are_ her priorities?

"Welcome," she calls out; Thor's looking at her, waiting for her to go on. Of course he could see her before she could see him, she's up high and surrounded by spotlights. "My name is Jane Foster. These are my friends Erik Selvig and Darcy Lewis," she points appropriately. "We came to find you. We're friendly and we're here to help you." Where _is_ her brain, and why can't she think clearly?

But she still notices that Thor's smile is fading, as he looks up at her, and she scrambles for an explanation. What's she done, has she said something wrong?

"A fair chance, to arrive in so timely a manner, strange though your conveyance may be." No, she's not missing the suspicion bleeding into his voice, despite the Shakespearean phrasing. He's got a similar accent to his brother, just thicker. "Asgard sent no greetings to your people. My errand here is none of Midgard's concern. How came you here and now, prepared thus?"

Oh! Jane realizes, as Thor shifts his grip on the hammer, which doesn't make her want to climb down and face him with her feet on the ground. He'll dwarf her, and she gets enough of that from humans. But she has to, doesn't she?

He's a prince, and she's shouting at him from above him. She's being rude.

She's being cautious, but Erik's promises – _Thor's the hero_ – and Loki's assurances – _Thor is friendly_ – give her the courage to slide down from the top of the van for what seems like the first time in a very long time.

The shock of landing knocks her ankles out like someone's cut off her feet, and she stumbles –

Only to find a broad hand under her elbow, catching her and lifting her back to her feet effortlessly, and Jane looks up into very blue eyes.

"Are you well, my lady?" Thor rumbles, curious rather than wary.

 _If you let go, I might swoon,_ Jane doesn't say, because she's having a weird night.

"Hey, he's cute and he's sweet," Darcy says from the passenger door – in other words, less than two feet from Thor, and the _Ways to Be Embarrassed by Darcy Lewis_ leaderboard gets another mark. "Can we keep him?"

"No," Jane says around all of the Viking space god or whatever Thor is. "We're here to be guides."

"Are you accustomed to such visitors?" Thor asks. He hasn't let go of her arm, and Jane feels very trapped for a second before sharply cowing that reaction into submission. She knows she makes snap judgments of people, but the sense she's getting from Thor is nothing like his brother. She'd looked at Loki and she'd thought _predator_.

Thor isn't holding her because he's captured her; she thinks he's just forgotten to let go.

Which is a very good thing, because she can only imagine how worried Erik must be, somewhere beyond the still-ogling Darcy.

"No," Jane says, and takes the risk. "But you're not the first Asgardian to come here recently. Your brother sent us to find you. To bring you out of the desert, and guide you around Earth."

Whatever fight Erik thinks Thor and Loki are having, Thor clearly hasn't been notified about it, because he lights up brighter than the floodlights. "Loki sent you? He is well? Good tidings! I have come seeking him, and already I have found word of him. Where is he?"

Thor finally lets her go, and strides away towards the edge of the light, calling out, "Loki! _Loki!_ Show yourself, brother! I am here! _Loki!_ " He sounds like every boy who's ever gotten tired of hide-and-seek: one part amusement, one part tolerance, one part impatience.

"Okay," Darcy says, "volunteers to go drag that guy back?"

"Yeah, that's clearly a nonstarter," Jane mutters, because she suspects that in a tug-of-war between Thor and the van, Thor's gonna win.

"Give him a minute," Erik urges, getting out and coming around to the passenger side of the van.

"He's crash-landed on a _strange_ planet," Darcy does her best Buzz Lightyear impersonation, and giggles.

Jane asks, under her breath, "Is he like you expected?"

Her friend shakes her head. "I don't totally believe he's the god of thunder, but he ought to be."

" _Loki!_ " Thor is still shouting, out into the darkness now, although Jane can see him moving, pacing back and forth.

"He's not here," Jane calls out. "That's why we are. He sent us."

"You cannot be sure of that," Thor retorts. His voice carries clearly. " _Loki_ , enough! Come and face me!"

Jane persists, "He's really not. He's a long way away, but we can take you to him. It's him you're here to find, right?"

Silence from out in the darkness, and then Thor strides back into the light. "A generous offer," he rumbles. "Perhaps too greatly so. Can you swear that Loki sent you to me, in good faith and without deception? You could as easily be a servant of Asgard's enemies. Is there nowhere I do not find them? My foes grow bold, of late, and they lay their traps on all sides."

That giant hammer shifts in his hand, and Jane is pretty sure that firstly, it's not as weightless as he makes it look, and secondly, her friends' eyes are as fixed to it as hers are. Lightning crackles across the dispersing clouds above, throwing weird shadows through the van's spotlights, as Thor scowls.

"If this is some plot," he warns, "you will rue the moment you came here."

"No," Jane blurts out, and hears it overlapped by Darcy and Erik, so that it comes out as a mismatched chorus of "No, nonono, no, no." She desperately needs to get this man back onto the even keel he'd started with, because if she's sure of anything on this mad night, it's that she does not want Thor to get angry with her or her friends.

"We're for real, I promise. Our job is to find you and take you to your brother. Nothing else. No tricks."

"Not from us," Erik mutters, and Jane glares at him briefly. But as she does she sees Darcy with her arms folded on the open window of the van, between them, and the slim bracelet around one wrist.

Beckoning to Darcy hurriedly, she hisses, "Where's the other one?" and taps at her own wrist where a matching cord rests. Erik is wearing the third one, under protest and reluctantly.

Darcy comes up with it at once, and Jane takes it from her, holds it out to Thor. "This is his work, right? He said you'd recognize it."

Thor takes it from her gently, rubbing a thumb over the surface of the leather. "Hah, and so it is," he says, all smiles again. If she looked up, would she see any trace of those flickers of lightning? "How strange a chance I should be pleased to sense that sneaky magic of his," he adds. That giant hammer dangles from its strap momentarily as he wraps the bracelet around his other hand without hesitation.

Jane's just sighing with relief, crisis averted, when Erik tosses out a new one. "Does anyone else hear that?"

Everyone, even Thor, stops and looks at him. "Hear what?" Darcy asks.

But in the baffled pause, Jane hears it too – a small but regular sound in the distance that she can only describe as _whupwhupwhupwhupwhup_.

"Helicopters," Erik says, shifting uneasily back towards the driver's seat. "Perhaps we'd better leave them to it, whoever _they_ are and whatever _it_ is. Or at least stop spotlighting ourselves like bugs under a magnifying glass?"

"Do your enemies seek you?" Thor asks, interestedly. "Have you enemies? What weapons do you bear?"

He looks almost disappointed when Jane insists that they have neither weapons nor enemies, and that they're scientists, and that Erik is probably being overcautious. Jane doesn't say _paranoid_ – she trusts Erik.

"If you come with us, we've got food and a place to stay," Jane offers in compensation. "And we'll take you to find your brother in the morning."

* * *

Jane had idly hoped that her call would wake Stark up – she refuses to be the only person so off-balance and running along the sharp edge of excited sleep deprivation this morning – but her cunning plan is foiled by voicemail.

She's surely not the only person who's ever had to say that.

But she leaves a somewhat scattered message, and returns to the small lab kitchen where her intern and their guest are eating breakfast. If that's even the term for the havoc Thor is wreaking on their little larder. _Demolishing_ breakfast might be closer, but at least he's laughing along with Darcy's attempt to feed him Pop-Tarts.

"Pancakes are burning," Jane says, and salvages what she can, snatching the spatula out of Darcy's careless hand and prying them off the griddle. As usual, it's left uncooked holes in the center of every pancake, and she sets about making them into doughnut pancakes.

Just another morning.

Except for the overwhelmingly _present_ blond alien, who can't possibly be glowing like he's his own light source. But he does seem lit up, between the smile and the reflections off that polished silver armor he's still wearing, although the cloak has vanished somehow, and it might, possibly, be a little less ornate than last night. Or maybe she'd imagined it, exaggerating him. If that's even possible.

"Are all of Midgard's foods so flat?" Thor asks curiously, taking a pancake doughnut from the plate barehanded without even looking at Jane. She manages not to trip over the giant hammer by Thor's booted foot.

"No, but a lot of breakfast foods are. I don't know why. Maybe because they're easy to make?" she suggests, replacing the bowl of scrambled eggs in the middle of the table with the plate. The eggs don't taste like chocolate this time, which suggests Erik is around somewhere. Unless Thor can cook.

"It is your world," Thor says. "I will be guided by you in this."

Jane definitely wants to reinforce that. "Good," she says. "Thank you. I think your world must be very different from ours. For example, we don't wear armor everywhere."

Thor looks at her like he didn't understand a word of that, waiting for the next thing that makes sense. Darcy snaps a picture of him, the fork in his hand like a child's toy, as Jane adds, "I think I might have some more casual clothes around. They might fit you."

"I have come here at the command of my father, and travel far from the safety of Asgard's borders," is Thor's seemingly irrelevant answer, which at least distracts Jane from the memory of how her ex's clothes got left here in the first place. God, she's so over that man. "Why would I conceal my honor and allegiance?"

"Hey, I just asked," Jane deflects, while she sorts that out. "So is it like a uniform? Something to show where you're from and who you're with?"

There's that baffled look again. "My armor is to caution my enemies that I am a warrior of Asgard, and to defend me against the blows of the more foolish who challenge me regardless."

 _Wow…_ Darcy mouths, safely behind Thor's back, and Jane decides launching a spoonful of scrambled eggs at her intern is not the impression she wants to make on a Viking god. As usual, the safest course of action is to ignore Darcy.

"All right. That's fine. So what _is_ your world like?"

Thor beams proudly. "Asgard is a great kingdom, a land of bold challenges and daring adventures, and my companions and I have ridden against them all! The length and breadth of Asgard is my hunting ground, and its people loyal to my family, and it is the finest of all the Nine Realms. Here we dine on traveler's rations, but on Asgard feasts may last for days, if Volstagg does not eat it all himself!" Thor laughs at a joke neither woman understands, and doesn't seem bothered by the fact that he's laughing alone. "The greatest wars came to an end while I was but a child, won by my father Odin, and yet there are battles still to wage to find glory beyond our borders. Aye, and I will lead our forces to victory, and Asgard's enemies will learn there is no shadow where they can hide from me."

His voice is ringing and clear, excited and enthusiastic, and Jane is reminded of nothing more than an orchestra's brass section. But what could be harsh is tempered by the sheer joy in his smile, and it's easy to imagine him flinging himself headlong into some _Lord of the Rings_ battle with a laugh and a call for others to join him, because it's going to be such smashing good fun.

He's so convinced of it that she almost believes him too.

"Very different," Jane says, when she's gotten her own voice back. "You'll probably be very bored here."

"But can you tell us some stories, on the drive?" Darcy begs, and Thor smiles broadly.

* * *

"We're not getting far like this," Jane admits after breakfast has been eaten and not at all washed up from – the dishes don't seem to matter right now. She sets her hands on her hips and glares at the van, at its permanent layer of desert dust and the drooping lights dangling from its roof. Visible through the one open rear door are the computer banks wedged into the back that double as extra seats, the empty chip bag sticking out of one of the side pockets, and wires everywhere powering the equipment bolted to roof and sides. And it's all capped off by the thoroscope like the horn of the world's weirdest unicorn, putting the rhinoceros to shame.

"That's what I thought," Erik's voice says from behind the other door. Logic suggests that Erik is in the van, and logic is validated when he nudges it open and scrambles out with the dust cannon. Jane had been using it to launch clouds of narrowly reflective dust into the lower atmosphere to make the traces of cosmic particle impacts easier to detect. It's basically just a souped-up potato cannon, and any idiot with a couple of pipes and some hairspray can build one of those.

In related news, Darcy has printouts of the more hilarious UFO websites. None of them say _space Vikings_ , though. Maybe that's too outrageous even for the UFO crowd.

"Oh. Good morning," Erik blurts out when he turns around and sees Thor standing there. "We'll just, uh, clear out the van a bit and then we'll be on our way." They're going to get a second – or a third, for Jane – shot at the readings she needs, but Stark had waved a hand and said, "Don't bother packing your gear, I'll get duplicates and have 'em ready for you in Mercury."

Thor asks, "What is it all for?"

"Sensing…strange things in the sky," Jane says, tempering her work down to the 'explain like they're five' level she uses when she's not sure how scientifically literate her audience is. If he asks good questions, she'll get more technical, but she's seen a lot of eyes glaze over when she starts with the heavy stuff. Like this giant monitor Erik has just handed her, when was this thing _made_ , the 1980s?

"And it…takes pictures…and we can learn – oh! More. Thank you."

Thor's taken it straight out of her hands, lifting it like it's nothing. Setting it down on a table, he asks, "This aided you in locating the Bifrost?"

"Yes! Yes, that's exactly what it all does. You're, um, pretty strong, huh? Do you want to help us get some of this stuff down? You don't have to –"

My _god_ , that smile. "You have shown me hospitality," Thor says, "It would be churlish of me to refuse so little aid."

Jane's breath of, "Oh. Good," is stomped all over by Erik calling out, "Thank god. We might actually get that machine off the roof without breaking it."

Stripping down the van into something road-trip-ready goes a lot more quickly with Thor's somewhat ham-handed but willing help. It turns out Asgardians are _insanely_ strong, and it takes Jane several tries to get the power drill into the heads of the screws attaching ride-along casing to van roof, skin still humming with the feeling of giant but gentle hands on her waist, picking her up bodily and lifting her.

"We'll probably be on the road for a couple of days," Jane says over the edge to the wide blue eyes watching her work, which doesn't help her concentration any. She points him to one of the strapped-down sensors just to get him to look somewhere else. "I don't want to give you orders or anything, but it would be better if you stayed with us, okay? Most people here have no idea that there are other worlds, much less ones with people on them, and definitely not people like you."

"My people have traveled elsewhere, of late," Thor says with a shrug, unimpeded by the radar dish. "Midgard is a small world."

It is profoundly lucky that Darcy is helping Erik get the general clutter that any vehicle accumulates out of the back of the van – which is to say, being berated for leaving t-shirts wadded up in odd corners, and denying fervently that they're hers – so Jane's irrepressible intern-sidekick doesn't get to make a joke out of that.

"Erik, leave off Darcy, I think that's my shirt," she calls down. And, "We forgot you ever came here, except for a few stories. But those are still hanging around."

Thor perks up visibly. "Fine tales? Of heroism and adventure?"

"Sometimes," Erik says – past a particularly stubborn strut, Jane sees Thor looking into the van through the passenger side window, so she can imagine where Erik is. "Your brother says most of them are wrong, though."

"Loki has always been one to question tales," Thor rumbles. "Though he mislikes it when others return the same, and doubt his more unlikely stories."

Up top and with one of the heavy screws, threads still trailing bits of duct tape, in hand, Jane's still thinking about the journey ahead. She muses, "I guess if we're just making a straight shot up to Nevada, you won't draw too much attention." How would she explain this man, if someone asked?

Note to self: drive _exactly_ the speed limit, although the idea of a highway cop trying to talk to Thor is…weirdly hilarious.

"That is the land where my brother now resides?"

"Um…" Jane says, to her chagrin, as she wrestles out another bolt and surrenders it to the calloused hand outstretched to her. "Actually, I don't know. Loki didn't say where he's been living, or what he's been doing since he got here. I didn't manage to ask. He and a friend of his contacted us."

"In truth? Loki is quick to find allies, but reluctant to make friends. But no matter, he is my brother, and so his place is at my side, and I have boon companions at my back to fight and laugh with us."

Trying very hard to keep her train of thought going, Jane continues, "We've got a rendezvous point northwest of here. I called this morning to say you were here and we were on our way."

"Oh," Thor says, "then your labors are not needed! Merely tell me which way to go, and I will fly there myself!"

Nobody quite drops a computer on their foot, but Jane hears something – it sounds like a Pringles can – hit the floor and go rolling away in the instant, total silence that follows this declaration.

"You _what_?" Darcy demands, peering around the open rear door, eyes very wide. "You can fly?"

"Of course. With Mjolnir in hand –"

Darcy's got one note at the moment, but she plays it like a kid with a kazoo. "With _what_?"

"The hammer," Erik calls out, climbing out of the van.

Thor steps back and reaches out a hand. There's a sudden feeling of pressure _,_ of _power_ , like the atmosphere right between the blinding lightning and the thunder that seems to shake the world, and the air shivers and hums. Jane catches a blur of motion out of the corner of her eye, and almost faster than she can see, that giant hammer has _flown spinning through the air_ and into Thor's open hand. He catches it without any discernible effort, and without even looking at it. This close, in the daylight, Jane can see the intricate carving around each face, complex knots emerging from simple lines, and that it's completely unmarked. Not like it's never been used – the easy, familiar way Thor hefts it suggests that it's a natural part of him – but like it's never met anything nasty enough to scratch it.

"– I can defeat a giant with a blow, or fly across great distances faster than a shout can follow. It is a powerful weapon I have been entrusted with, but I have made it my own. Show me the path, then, and I will find my brother from the skies and disturb your people no more."

It's such an unexpected idea that it takes Jane a moment to organize a coherent objection. "I…thank you," she says eventually, as Thor spins the warhammer almost idly and grins at what must be a very shocked expression on her face. Dammit – he's just as big a showoff as his brother is, isn't he? That flair for the theatrical Loki had demonstrated so casually, catching and holding their attention with wonders – here's the other side of it. Thor is forceful where Loki is graceful, but they're equally impressive, in their own ways.

Jane is duly impressed. And unmoved. She's a woman in science, and she's a teacher, and so she can hold her ground with the best. "But that would disturb people a lot, actually. We've only got one person around here who goes flying around without a plane, and since you're not him, someone would call the military, and no one needs an interplanetary incident from some trigger-happy Air Force pilot trying to shoot you out of the sky."

Actually, she realizes as she speaks, it's quite possible that to combat a human-shaped UFO, someone would try to send Iron Man to deal with that, and boy, would that mess up the out-of-the-way family reunion Stark seems to be trying to orchestrate.

"Your weapons cannot hurt me," Thor says dismissively.

"Maybe not. But here on Earth we don't try to start fights we don't have to," Jane lies flatly. Three minutes of history lesson and he'll know how wrong that is, but lying to aliens is probably right at the beginning of whatever First Contact protocols the UN or whoever has buried in a box somewhere. "Let's stick to the plan, okay? You said this was my world, so please trust me to know what I'm doing."

"You have my word," Thor says, and the eyes meeting hers are deep oceans of sincerity, or something similarly banal and chick-lit-prosy that on any other day, Jane would be trying to extract from her skull with this power drill.

Instead, she sits there and stares back into them, feeling her own – dammit – enchanted smile spread out in answer to Thor's, an oddly warm silence spreading between them.

It's broken by Darcy, which figures.

"Actually, how come there's a plan at all?"

"What?" everyone, including Thor, says.

"I mean, Loki's been here for years, right?" she looks around, checking. "And within a few _weeks_ of putting us on the lookout, here's Thor, right on schedule. That's good timing. How did he know? Is there like a timer, or something? Did you guys have a meeting set up all along? He knew you were coming, and more or less when."

"Of course he knew," Thor says, quite matter-of-factly. "He cannot imagine he could mount an assault on Asgard and have it go unnoticed. Loki never listens, and he does not learn, however sharply he is rebuked."

Once again, everyone else in the room says, _"What?"_

Their little chorus is punctuated by a knock on the door.

Seriously? Now? Jane has had enough strangers at her door – there's even a big handwritten sign that says _Not a Coffee Shop_ now, unless it's blown away with the cliché tumbleweeds that she's still guiltily hoping to spot at some point.

Then again, there's probably a trendy niche coffee shop called Not a Coffee Shop somewhere, and the sign is accidentally ironic.

"I'll get it," she says, and doesn't at all scramble towards the broad hands and strong arms raised towards her, ready to lift her down. "Um, thanks. That machine up there is loose now. Be gentle with it, please."

"Of course," Thor, who's been so gentle with her, says amiably, and useless bits of Jane's stomach do tiny flips.

Jane mutters, "I'll just – and then it looks like we're ready to go –" and similar nonsense across the few steps to the door, where there's a compact, tidy man in a businesslike suit with his hands folded behind his back, waiting on the far side of the glass with a calm smile.

He's an unmemorable, everyday sort of person – there are ten thousand like him in every city, and at least a dozen on every college campus, buried in the paperwork and the databases – but he still looks familiar.

"I've seen you before," Jane says instead of hello, opening the door just far enough to talk through, but not far enough to admit more than a cat. "We still don't have coffee. And you know that," she reasons, watching his bland expression, "so who are you and what do you want?"

"Can I come in?" the man asks pleasantly.

Without thinking, she answers, "No." He'd made it inside the last time, persistent without being noticeably pushy, and she's still not sure how he'd managed it. It had been like he'd diffused into the room rather than walked, which is a skill she'd associate with…

…the sort of watchers who'd worry Erik?

"Why are you watching my lab?" Jane demands, and in a fit of inspiration, adds, "Do you have a warrant?"

The man is still smiling. "We're not the police. I'm Agent Coulson, with an organization called SHIELD. We're…something more specialized. You're not in trouble," Coulson says. "I'm just investigating some strange activity in the area. Maybe you've noticed something?"

Jane stares at him, baffled, not daring to look back over her shoulder at the wide-open room as she tries to reconstruct the space in her head. Sensors, detectors, equipment, and computers all over the floor. The van broadside on to the door. Darcy and Erik standing behind it, or maybe they've moved by now.

…Thor's behind it. Out of sight of the door, if he stays put.

Please, please, please stay put…

Of course, the _back_ of the lab is wide-open, so if there's more than one Agent Coulson around – she doesn't know why she's imagining a clone army of Coulsons – there's no hiding the six-foot-plus alien Viking god standing around in comparatively light armor, warhammer at his feet.

"Investigating what?" Jane's mouth says without her. "Nothing happens here. Why do you think I have my lab here? It's a quiet place to work. They don't even sell Girl Scout Cookies door to door. What, are there kids tearing up the streets or something? I thought the Internet solved the 'there's nothing to do around here' thing. Should I be locking my doors more?

Coulson isn't buying it, which is no surprise, as Jane wouldn't buy that lump of nonsense either. "Astrophysically strange, Dr. Foster. That is your field, is it not?" He looks past her at the lab he's already seen, while he was pretending to be looking for coffee, and at Jane's scientific equipment everywhere.

"Yeah," she agrees, warily.

He doesn't quite raise an eyebrow at her. "Get any good readings last night?"

"I'm calibrating my machines," Jane declares. Why is she…not lying, but hiding from…this man? She doesn't know anything about him, for one thing, except that his agency has been spying on her and her friends rather than just _asking_.

And the grad student who's still a part of her, who'd had her treasured discovery taken away and thrown out, is snarling and hoarding to herself all she's discovered, all she's learned, all she's had the privilege of witnessing. The raw astrophysical data waiting to be interpreted and translated, and the very real, very incredible alien who laughs at doughnut pancakes and can eat a whole box of Pop-Tarts and whose hands on her waist were very warm. And a magician, a shapechanger, who'd fallen from the sky one August night and managed to survive Earth all on his own.

These things are hers – okay, maybe that last is Stark's – and she's not going to have them taken away. Not this time!

"All night?" Coulson presses her.

"There are a lot of them," she counters, with the evidence laid out behind her.

He looks past her dutifully. "That seems like some nice equipment for an independent scientist and an adjunct professor."

Oh, he does _not_ want to play this game with her! "You should go complain to the state legislature about university funding then. I'm sure they'll be delighted to have a government…whatever you are…on their side. Excuse me," she says firmly. "Bye."

And closes the door.

And determinedly doesn't look over her shoulder as she walks back to where Erik and Darcy are visibly eavesdropping, and smiles around the corner of the van where Thor is waiting right where she'd left him, and helps her friends load the crowded-out back seat back into the van.

"Is he gone?" she asks a few minutes later.

"I don't see him, but that doesn't mean anything," Erik growls. "How did SHIELD get involved in this?"

"You know them?" Thor asks; somehow he's been demoted from weirdest thing to happen today, and Jane's just happy to have him at her shoulder, accepting the water bottle she hands him and watching her twist the top off before trying it himself. The plastic creaks under his grip, but he tempers his strength before it can tear.

Erik taps his own water bottle against the edge of the table, scowling. "Not much. But if you look around hard enough, they're everywhere. Science, technology, politics, international affairs; I've worked for labs that SHIELD was funding, and I signed so many NDAs – uh, oaths to keep silent about my work, Thor – that if I ever say more than that, I'll be in prison for the rest of my life, and probably you two along with me. I don't know what they'd do with you."

"Then they should come openly, and speak as courteously as you, and I will gladly grant them audience," Thor declares. Apparently he's decided this is all about him, and that it's only to be expected.

Jane can't honestly disagree. The timing is too perfect. And what was it Thor had said about Loki's choice of timing, before the black helicopter crowd came calling?

"Are we in danger?" Darcy asks, eyes wide. She's twirled a finger into her hair, tight enough to tangle.

"Fear not," says Thor, cheerful again. "You are my companions on this world, and so I will protect you against any who mean you harm."

"Aw. I knew you were sweet."

Jane and Erik trade looks behind Thor's back, though. What began as an adventure beyond the fringes of science is becoming more dangerous – and more real – than they'd bargained for.

Still, Jane puts her foot down and insists that they're not going to take off running, that they've got a long way to drive and they're still going, and they're going to go _prepared_ , dammit. And maybe it's for the best. Maybe SHIELD will go away while they load up the van with water and the remains of their snack supplies, and three small day bags plus assorted electronics, and while Erik gets to be the one to teach Thor how Earth toilets work.

And the weirdest road trip Jane has ever been on – that any of them have ever been on, probably – finally gets under way.

Before they've even hit the edge of town, Darcy's dubbed it the Interplanetary Road Trip, because Thor's come all the way from Asgard, and that's another planet, to Earth, and now they're off to a town called Mercury, and she's started assembling an appropriate playlist.

* * *

Midgard is a most respectful world.

Strange, certainly, in its customs and the things its people forbid, which Thor has acceded to with good humor, allowing them their foibles. This world's barren landscape is far different from Asgard's golden city and lush marches, although Erik has assured him that other territories of Midgard are otherwise, and Jane has brought out a small machine – a laptop, because it goes on top of laps just like hers – to show him images of more of Midgard not visible from here.

Thor would have been just as content to be met with resistance, with drawn blades and defiant eyes, standing between him and his errand here. He would have gladly fought his way through hordes, had he been assailed out of the darkness or turned away at the gates of a city that dared to stand against him. He would have sought out Midgard's commanders and demanded that his brother be brought to him, for it would have been a joy to have a fight he could win. The campaign on Alfheim goes…

Badly. It is frustrating. His foes do not act as they should; he cannot even tell ally from enemy, of late, and perhaps ever. Give him an opponent he can meet in open battle, who will face him honorably and stand clearly in his path, to be struck aside with a blow!

But Alfheim tangles most irritatingly, a greater mire with every moment, and now on Midgard there is no challenge for him and no glory to win. Instead his arrival has been awaited and prepared for, acceptably enough. But even in peacetime there are glorious tales to share, of better quests and more enjoyable wars, and that will serve.

No matter that Loki's Midgardian messengers are humble folk, awed by his presence – all to the better, and just as it should be! And Thor has never pretended to understand his brother's plots, underhanded and far too subtle as they are; this rebuke is hardly the first time Loki has been caught within his own threads.

"– and fourscore more besides," Thor continues his tale, holding his hands apart to show the girth of them, "and those the new-hatched little monsters! Foul beasts, and ravenous, devouring all within their gaze, and with breath to stun a horse, fresh from the shell as they were. I had turned aside the full-grown nest some years before, with Sif by my side and the Warriors Three guarding my back, but there is little more cunning than a serpent, is there not? And the greatest of them most cunning of all, though Sif lopped off the tip of its tail to keep it from sinking its fangs into me, and I had fought myself free by the time the head knew the tail was missing!"

He laughs, enjoying the open-mouthed stares from his small and makeshift court, even as the vehicle – the van – veers from its course, and Erik startles and corrects it, trying to watch the seemingly endless road and Asgard's prince at the same time. It does not drive itself, he has already been told, which does not compare well to a horse, for all their protests that nobody rides horses any great distance here. An Asgardian steed would have reached the blocky mountains on the blue horizon by now, surely.

Still, he gave Jane his word, and he will allow them to guide him for now. Even their measures of distance are unfamiliar to him, except that it is a journey of two days.

"Some of them must have crept away, serpents in truth for all their great size, and left their eggs to devour Asgard from the roots. But when rumors of monsters came to the palace, I went at once to hunt them down."

"Have to say, I'm not keen on snakes," Darcy says with a delighted shudder. " _So_ glad we don't have flying ones here."

"They were ferocious. From dawn to dusk the battle raged," he goes on. "But I struck them from the sky with lightning, and the earth shook beneath the blows of Volstagg's axe as he chopped them down, and none escaped to poison Asgard's wells and her people. You are fortunate to have only small serpents here, and ones that warn you when you approach."

"We're still not stopping in the middle of the desert," Erik says as Jane closes the laptop on the image of the rattlesnake. "Even if you could send every snake packing with that hammer."

Jane offers, "Another time," and Thor smiles at her. She's small but fierce, and he's amused by this little woman who leads her scant household with fondness and authority. Sif would like her, and Thor respects Sif's judgment as much as anyone's.

Certainly more than Loki's, at times; Thor had threatened to knock his brother over and shake him if he so much as _suspected_ that Loki had caught and kept one of the flying serpents for his own. Loki had fervently denied doing so, and then laughed and run for it when Thor had leapt and sworn at and attacked the illusory snake that had coiled up his leg in the middle of a feast.

"So what was it you said, back at the lab?" Jane persists, as if she'd read his thoughts. "I…we…did kind of get the idea that your brother's in trouble back home. But he wouldn't tell us why. Will you? Not that I'm looking for gossip, it's just that you're a warrior, with super-strength and powers over lightning, apparently, and I bet Loki's just as dangerous, and we can't be in the middle of that, okay? I'm responsible for these guys. I need to know what's going on."

Yes, Sif would like her, and it is noble of her to think of her friends. "Loki was banished here some years ago, just until all is settled again, I believe. Our father has not told me the tale, but one of the Nine Realms has fallen into chaos and open war of late, and Loki was blamed."

And now the blame falls on Thor for _Loki_ 's error, because he has failed to restore the peace quickly enough for the All-Father's desires. It was long ago their father earned the title Glad-of-War, and perhaps it is no longer his by right. But even Thor tires of the morass that is Alfheim, and he burns still from Odin's scorching words when his son returned from battle.

" _If you cannot hunt down a single pack of elves,"_ the All-Father had said, _"perhaps you require a simpler task. Since you make a practice of returning empty-handed, to Midgard with you. Go and find your brother, warn him I have no patience for his impudence, and do_ not _return with him. Do you believe that is an order you can obey?"_

"Unfairly?" Darcy asks innocently. She knows nothing of _unfair_. "He seemed to think so."

Thor shrugs, determined to show nothing of his frustration to mortal eyes. Father will forgive him, for is it not his role and his right to be Asgard's fist in battle? Alfheim's war has been given to him to end, and it irks him that the war defies him still. But that all is not simple and resolved at once only offers him and his warriors chances to win more glory for themselves, though even the victories they win have been…poor, of late.

And until then, it will be good to see Loki again. "I've no doubt he played a part. Loki wails protest all the louder when he is truly at fault than when he is innocent, and he has never found anything he could resist meddling with. Father sent him away to restore the peace, and to keep him from meddling further."

"And what, just dropped him on Earth and left him?" This from Erik, still slaved to the whims of the van, which seems determined to wander off the road. Another, different-looking vehicle, traveling the other way, makes a jarring noise at their conveyance.

"Why not? There is nothing on this world and little in any other that my brother cannot outwit or strike down, or at least escape from, magician and warrior that he is. He has come to no harm, is that not so? Better to send him away, lest he and Father come to blows."

Thor genuinely doesn't understand the expressions on Jane's and Darcy's faces. They look very confused, and perhaps taken aback. But why? Loki has merely grown too old to be dismissed to his rooms and told to remain until his latest sudden, unwarranted rage has abated. For as long as Thor can remember, it has been a loose word or a casual jest that has set Loki off without warning, when a thousand similar remarks drew no blood at all, and then nothing will placate him but time and distance.

Loki can be completely unmanageable sometimes.

Whatever has befallen his difficult, moody, over-clever little brother on this strange and isolated world, it cannot have been that bad. He has survived it, plain to see, and well enough that he has found allies to do his bidding. But that he has retained enough of his grudge to defy Father's will and seek to return before time is disappointing, if not unexpected.

Also, it's not happening to Thor himself, so it cannot be that important.

"I think I'm glad I'm an only child," Jane says eventually. "Siblings seem like difficult things to have."

Erik agrees, "Same here."

"Me too," says Darcy. "Tell us another story!"

* * *

Half the day is consumed with tales of Asgard and Thor's adventures among the Nine Realms, telling them of the jolly little war between the Eternal Realm and Vanaheim that brought Hogun into his company, and of hunting down a pack of Jotuns that had ventured into a Market of Worlds and dared to show their faces, and of the time Fandral had been blinded for a time, when he had stumbled into Thor's lightning in battle while showing off his sword tricks, and the havoc Asgard's princes and Thor's friends had wreaked across the Realms as they sought a healer or a cure, wandering off into other adventures along the way.

In return Jane and Erik and Darcy tell Thor a little bit of this world, which they insist is called Earth and not Midgard, but that is only their opinion and Thor knows better. It is a fractured place, as much as ever-shattering Alfheim, with no king and no voice among the other Realms. It seems a Realm obsessed with _why_ and with _how_ , that takes things apart to find out how they work, and that is always looking for new ideas and new machines. It sounds most unlike Asgard, where little has changed over Thor's millennium and more of life, and will doubtless change no further, even with himself as king someday.

The desert seems to roll on forever, and Thor grows restless, wanting to run and fly, or even to stand erect on his own feet. Getting to a place by _waiting_ is no sport at all.

"We should probably stop in the next town," Jane suggests, tracing a finger across a paper map Darcy had found in a _glove compartment_ , although it contained no gloves. "Now that we've made it to Arizona –" The terrain looks no different, and they had crossed no rivers or other borders, but Thor had dutifully looked at the signs declaring this the Land of Arizona when prompted. "– Erik, you and I can switch out."

"Can I drive?"

"No, Darcy," both of her friends say.

This seems wise.

* * *

Jane's previous candidate for _worst idea ever_ , which was "get drunk at the faculty/staff Christmas party the dean throws every year", has just been superseded by the far, far worse "let Thor run loose in a convenience store".

"Okay," she says in her very hardest nice voice, "I think you should probably stay with me." And somehow grabbing his hand turns into her arm in his, and she'll just say it's for the leverage, even though she doesn't have a hope in hell of steering this man anywhere he doesn't want to go. There's a lot of arm to hang on to.

She just can't watch him look around cluelessly any longer. Maybe he doesn't care, but she's embarrassed for the prince who's so at home in his own world and so lost in hers. It's not his fault he doesn't know that pushing little levers will make soda spew onto his hand, or that the mirrors in each corner are supposed to be that distorted and don't need to be taken down and flattened out, or that peanut butter cups are not the national food of Arizona and thus required to be eaten whole when possible. Of course, there's an important difference between genuinely not knowing, and being maliciously and gleefully lied to by small poli-sci majors who have spotted the _massive_ entertainment potential in all this.

The weary-eyed teenager _way_ behind the counter gives her a resigned look, and she imagines him telling his friends about this giant blond guy in a costume, cheerfully drunk long before five o'clock, and his freaking giant hammer.

Jane is very worried that this alien warrior prince is going to realize how foolish he sounds, even if it's not his fault, get angry, and start smashing things. She's seen how strong he is, and if his stories about the hammer are anywhere close to the truth, there might not be a building left standing, much less anyone alive within it. Still, she hadn't tried to suggest he leave it in the van with the rest of their stuff; Thor doesn't even appear to notice it's in his other hand. Which means – aha – both his hands are now immobilized and he can only look at things. That's better.

And comment on them.

That's not.

"What is iced cream?"

"Ooh!" Darcy says, and scoops half a gallon of thematically-appropriate Rocky Road into her basket, stealing some paper cups and plastic spoons in passing.

They escape with less than half the store's worth of snack food and shiny objects, and Jane only has to leap to the defense of her loud, outsized, _still in armor_ companion once.

"It's been a really long day," she glares at the cashier. "Yours too, I bet. There's nothing you can say I haven't already thought, so just _don't_ , okay? I know. I wish I could say I could explain, but I can't. I'm just going to take my friend here, and we'll get back on the road."

"To the Renaissance Faire," Erik contributes, coming in to pay for their gas and stand under the air conditioning vent.

* * *

Back in the van and on the road, Jane watches as Darcy parcels out ice cream to everyone, smiling as Thor declares, "Excellent! Another!" and holds out his half-a-cup just like any little boy saying _please miss, I want some more._

It's tough to dislike someone who likes ice cream quite that much, and despite everything, she's really growing to like Thor, alien Viking frat boy that he is. Ordinarily, Jane maintains a strict 25-foot No Frat Boys exclusion zone, but Thor is _easy_ to like, open and friendly and enthusiastic, and straightforward despite the archaic speech. She can't imagine him ever lying to her, or to anyone.

Sure, there's the warhammer and the armor and the blood-soaked war stories, but he laughs about them like they're harmless adventures. And in the bright sunlight as the van eats up a few more miles of I-40, it's very hard to be scared of someone with an ice cream spoon in his mouth and a beaming smile around it as Darcy takes a picture.

If she's stumbling over anything, it's not that he's maybe a Norse god, and almost definitely a space alien. It's not that he landed in the desert last night out of an Einstein-Rosen bridge. It's not that he claims to be able to summon weaponized lightning from the sky, or that he's the only one capable of lifting that unpronounceable hammer.

What she can't believe is that this extroverted golden Viking warrior she's looking at now is related to the poised, sardonic alien magician she'd met eight weeks ago. They're seemingly total opposites: light and dark, brazenness and stealth, blunt warhammer and…what?

What she can imagine, as she watches bright and outgoing Thor in the corner of her eye, is Loki lurking in Thor's shadow, and not terribly happy to be there.

 _Stick to the plan, Jane,_ she scolds herself. _Get to Mercury. Get your readings, if you can, or get yourself and Erik and Darcy the hell out of the way_. _Don't get involved._

* * *

She should be exhausted, but the glittering high of the past twenty-four hours of weirdness hasn't worn off yet, and Jane paces around the little motel room, unable to sit down and start up her laptop and dig into the treasure trove of data she'd downloaded before they left New Mexico. She's been meaning to get to it all day and never so much as got _near_.

They've got a chunk of Arizona and the southern tip of Nevada still to cross, the second leg of the Interplanetary Road Trip, but arriving late at night and probably getting lost in strange country sounded more creepy than appealing. So instead they've stopped at a small motel that doesn't know what's hit it and hopefully never will.

A minute of holding on to the chipboard desk to keep herself in the thin chair goes to waste, and Jane springs up and roams outside again. The motel is on the outskirts of this sprawling town, and she knows there's no way she'll be able to see the stars as clearly as she'd like, but long-established reflexes are saying _go see!_

On the road, a single car drives past, headlights on one horizon becoming separate eyes, and then a dopplering growl of engines and tires, and then retreating red taillights that blur together again. Out there, something flashes like a reflection. Maybe it's another car, set to come by in the next few minutes. Hell, the way her life is going right now, maybe it's a UFO, or SHIELD stalking them.

Jane doesn't stick around to find out, trailing her fingers across the drought-hardy plants that line the walkway and the parking lot, keeping a wary eye out for cacti and the abundant local thorny plants. Around the corner, the motel boasts a somewhat decrepit pool and an entirely forlorn hot tub, water levels low but submerged lights still on hopefully.

"I thought you abed, my lady," the large shadow by it says, voice carrying clearly.

She manages not to jump; somehow she's not surprised he hasn't stayed put, and the image of Thor in a motel room is almost as ludicrous as the gas station.

"Couldn't sleep," she answers. "Too much going on. Mind if I stay here for a little while?"

"You are welcome here, as you have made me welcome," Thor says magnanimously, and she can't suppress the tiny laugh. "Have I said aught in jest?"

"No, no, it's just…" Jane drags over one of the weather-beaten lounges, hoping the plastic straps won't give way beneath her. "I never imagined someone from another world would be like you."

Rather than looming above her, Thor sits down on the raised edge of the hot tub, backlit and shadowy. "You have thought of it often? I understood Midgard stood aside from the Nine Realms, taking no part in our affairs and our quarrels."

"Probably a good thing, from the stories you've told today. But we've always hoped, you know?" she says, wishing for a mug of cocoa, something warm to hold in her hands like a private campfire. "A lot of people here dream of other worlds. We imagine what could be out there. We tell stories. We hope that we're not alone in the universe. We've looked and looked – that's where my work comes from. Listening to the stars, and calling out to them. Trying to figure out how we're going to get there, and who we're going to meet when we do. And now I've met two aliens in two months, and you're _nothing_ like what I imagined."

"Do I please you, then?" Thor says with a smile she could have seen from the parking lot.

Jane laughs. "Yes," she admits. "Yes, you do. It's wonderful that we can even talk to each other, and that you're so much like us. Bigger and stronger, but we've got enough in common to have a conversation, and to share stories, and that's…incredible, Thor, you have no idea. My people have always thought the aliens would be _so_ alien we wouldn't even be able to communicate, or that we'd find just fish under the ice or something."

"Fish?" He sounds so baffled. Her dreams must seem very small to a man who travels between worlds with the same aplomb with which he'd ridden in the van.

"Yeah." Before she can talk herself out of it, she moves to sit next to him. "See…that star there?" she points, and holds herself still as he shifts closer to look along her pointing finger. He's warm. "It's actually a planet. Jupiter, biggest one in our star system. Named for the king of the gods in a pantheon on the other side of the world. And around it, it's got four big moons."

She pulls her journal and pen out of her jacket pocket rather than leaning against Thor's shoulder, opens it to a blank page, and sketches out one of Galileo's drawings, adding, "Lots of little ones, too, but this one is called Europa. It's a water world. Ice covering – we think – the biggest ocean in the system, kept warm by Jupiter tugging on it. And there might be life there. We just don't know. But that was all we could really hope for. No grand canals on Mars, no lush jungles on Venus."

The alien by her side looks at her drawing, and then back up at the late summer sky, and Jane smiles back at him. "But here you are," she says. "And we're not alone. And you're friendly. And that's amazing."

It's true, but not the whole truth, because somehow she likes _him_ , too, not just what he represents. He's direct and honest even if she doesn't always like what he says. He's an arrogant snob, and worse at hiding it than his brother is; she can hear the way he speaks to her and her friends, like they're servants. He's callous towards his younger brother, who's on the edges of his stories at best, and he's rude without knowing it. But he's charming – and not in the seductive, dangerous way that Loki was, but genuinely, totally so. He's likable, charismatic, and she can see why his friends would follow him even into the craziest of adventures.

Also, my _god_ , is he a good-looking guy.

"How come you're just following along with us like this?" she has to ask.

"Why should I not?" Thor asks in return. "I have no fear of you, or anything on this world. Should you lead me astray, I will chastise you and destroy whatever trap has been set – but I do not believe it of you," he adds hastily, no doubt feeling her flinch where their shoulders touch. Well, where her shoulder is against his side. "There is nothing here I cannot fight, and should I need to, I can summon my friends to aid me. I need only call out to Heimdall, Gatekeeper of the Eternal Realm, and Sif and the Warriors Three will ride at my command."

With a start that she hastily suppresses, Jane realizes that in this, he's wrong, because there's still a dark line of discreet, forgettable leather bracelet around the wrist very nearly in her lap. She remembers, a bit guiltily, Loki telling them that his magic would hide them – and Thor as well – from that Gatekeeper.

…maybe she doesn't want to mention that right now.

"You have good friends," she says instead. "But you and Loki don't really get along, do you? The stories you've told…"

Thor sighs, appropriately thunderously, and Jane wonders if Erik still doubts who this guy is. "Not always," he says with obvious regret. "Loki no longer speaks to me freely, and does not trust me with his thoughts. He used to, when we were small. Once we were inseparable. We'd quarrel, as all brothers do, but I believe he loved me once as I love him still, as brothers should. I no longer understand him, and he tests me too often, and I the elder and the rightful heir to our father's throne."

Oh right, Jane remembers, hands tight around her notebook. They're both princes of an alien realm.

"But he loves Asgard fiercely, and when I am king," Thor says with total confidence, and Jane is irresistibly reminded of a tiny, cocky, animated lion cub, "I will find a place for him. Loki can catch traitors before they break cover and hunt out secrets that have never been spoken, and that is a talent I will value greatly in my service. My brother is a powerful weapon, used well."

"So you never worried for him, down here on this alien world?"

"Not at all. Loki is clever, and I cannot be surprised that he has learned to use Midgard to his own ends. I can slay a _sceadugenga_ in open combat, but Loki can creep into its den unseen or in the form of its cub and find the lone weak point that will admit a knife between its scales. I have seen him do so – aye, and emerge riding the beast, with daggers as spurs! You should have seen him stalk the ambassador from Nidavellir, many years ago, hunting out his weak points just the same!" and Thor laughs loud enough to wake the entire motel.

The sound sends little crackles of lightning sparking along Jane's body. "Whatever that is, I'm glad we don't have any," she says, because that's clearly the reason. "You must find Earth so _boring…_ "

He covers one of her hands with his own and smiles at her again. "All the Realms are different," he assures her. "Jotunheim is a world of ice and darkness, and its Frost Giants our sworn enemies. Svartalfheim is a ruin of a world, desert and devastation, its lands scorched to dust, dead from horizon to horizon. Musphelheim burns like a furnace, so that even the stone melts when struck, and the air chokes with every breath. What I have seen of Midgard I understand is not the whole of it, and the company is fine indeed. I am grateful for your guidance here, and if my presence pleases you, be assured that yours pleases me as well."

It's several seconds before Jane can organize a reply, she's grinning so hard. "That's…maybe the strangest and nicest compliment anyone has ever given me."

Thor chuckles. "I rue only that you are my brother's chosen guide, and not a gift offered to make peace."

Okay, no, _that's_ the strangest compliment. "I – am definitely not!" Jane hears her voice squawk in scandalized outrage.

He laughs even harder, if that's possible. "Peace, peace, my lady! I meant no insult. It was proper and polite of Loki to send aid, even knowing my errand works against his ends, and our quarrel is none of yours, as you said. No harm will come to you, and nothing will be taken you do not offer."

Feeling like a ruffled bird, Jane tries to mentally shake herself back into order, even if an entirely stupid part of her…not her brain…has been sizing Thor up and saying _yum_ pretty much constantly. Nothing good happens when she lets those impulses drive.

"I…thank you. Remember that, and we're OK." She clears her throat and changes the subject. "Do you think it'll come to that? Are we driving you to a fight?"

Thor, on the other hand, is totally unruffled. "I pray not. I have no desire to fight Loki, unless he should force it of me. I come only to rebuke him, and to urge him to be patient and await our father's forgiveness. Father will relent, in time, but I fear Loki harming himself, struggling against whatever obstacles have been placed in his way."

Actually, it's easy to imagine seething resentment in Loki's green eyes, even though she's only met him briefly. "So you're just going to, what, march up and tell him to stop it?"

Giant shoulders shift in a shrug. "Loki is always fighting the way things are intended to be, believing he has some cleverer idea. It has led him into enough trouble in the past, and if I must protect him from himself, that is my duty as his brother and his future king."

* * *

Shockingly, the next day is sunny.

This has been sarcasm.

Although she's unaware of it, Jane is driving almost the same route that Loki himself took, crossing the long distance by night and by chance, years ago. They have covered in two days a distance that had taken the wolf months. But she goes well around Las Vegas, keeping to their practice of staying out of major cities and sticking to the open highway when possible.

The cheerful atmosphere within the van fades the further north they go, as the welcoming and downright garish signs for Las Vegas fade away behind them, and as the landscape grows more forbidding. The roads become narrower and the buildings they see more huddled in on themselves, and there's a distinctly _militarized_ feel to a lot of the vehicles that pass their tough but civilian van.

"What _is_ that noise?" Erik asks. "Jane, pull over."

Fortunately, her dismal car repair skills are not needed, because the persistent clicking turns out to be a Geiger counter that had gone unnoticed under the driver's seat.

"Why is it doing that?" Thor asks, as Erik switches it off grimly.

"It's a radiation detector," he answers. "We're heading into an area where people used to test bombs."

Jane looks out at the landscape with a shudder, remembering old photographs of people in Las Vegas watching the mushroom clouds on the horizon, applauding like it was a great show no different from the acrobats and the gambling and the dancing girls. This region of Nevada was never a lush and verdant land, but it's been hit hard, and she suspects no one knows _how_ hard. They're not just heading into the country's biggest bomb range; they're heading into a desert expanse where secrets go to die.

This is not a place to bring an honored guest, or a beloved, welcomed brother.

This is a place you take something that might go very bad, very fast, on an epic scale.

Darcy spots the first checkpoint before they drive into it, and Erik, who's taken over the wheel, pulls over so that Jane can call for help, because there's no way the soldiers guarding their post will just let this van and its strange cargo past without permission.

Her phone rings several times and is answered by a polite voice that is, from the first word, obviously not Tony Stark.

" _Good morning, Dr. Foster,"_ whoever this is says. _"My name is JARVIS."_ She hears it as Jarvis, not having met the AI before, and assumes she's just gotten an assistant, which is all but confirmed by his next words. _"Mr. Stark is not available. What is your status?"_

She grimaces. "You know who I am and what we're doing?"

" _Yes, Dr. Foster. I am privy to all of Mr. Stark's concerns."_

"Okay. We're heading towards Mercury. Did your boss realize that it's a military base and they're not going to let us just drive in? We could use some help here."

" _Permission has been arranged. Your name and ID and the van's license plate are your authorization; I understand you will be issued additional identification allowing you in. Your vehicle will not be inspected, nor your companions required to identify themselves."_

Jane feels her eyebrows go up. "Wow. That's…a lot of trust."

" _The Stark name carries great weight here, one of the reasons this is your rendezvous point."_

"Right. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Jarvis."

There's amusement over the phone line, understated but there. _"I am Mr. Jarvis' namesake, and merely JARVIS."_

Erik shakes his head in disbelief when the guards at the checkpoint wave them through, blinking through the open window at Thor in his armor but making no comment, and the pattern repeats at three more checkpoints. Each time, they're given directions to the next and told not to divert from that route, not to stop, and not to turn around. Jane suspects they're being timed, each guard post radioing ahead and warning the next to expect them.

"This is totally creepy," Darcy sums it up, uncharacteristically subdued.

If she didn't have very good reasons to, Jane wouldn't go within fifty miles of this place. The Geiger counter may be shut off, but its clicking persists inside her head, warning her of the dire, elemental powers that were unleashed near here on behalf of nothing resembling her pure, clean astrophysics. The fundamental forces of the universe, torn apart in the cause of destruction.

She resolves to do better science while she's here, since she didn't get any done on the way. Thor's distracting. But they've brought him here, and once he and Loki have settled whatever's between them, Thor will call that rainbow Einstein-Rosen bridge back to him and Jane Foster will get her corroboration on every detector Stark has provided.

The road into Mercury, very nearly a ghost town, is indeed totally creepy. Foothills in the distance are overshadowed by sharp white mountains beyond, both looming over the modest cluster of buildings, huddled together against the desert. But neither Erik nor Darcy say anything about turning back, or that they shouldn't have come here, as the van hauls itself around a bend and starts the final approach into Mercury.

Jane knows how they feel. She, too, can wait to get out of here until she's seen the outcome of this family drama on the scale of worlds that they've been caught up in.

* * *

It's not quite high noon when Jane brings the van to a well-deserved stop, pulled up into the shadow of a boarded-up building and out of the way.

But still, as Thor climbs out and looks around with an expression of wary curiosity and level readiness, Jane can't shake the image of a gunslinger striding out onto Main Street, or a sheriff hunting his man.

* * *

 _To be continued._


	16. The Lightning Thief

ON WITH THE SHOW

 **Chapter Sixteen: The Lightning Thief**

 _Earlier:_

Tony's already been told not to yell into the microphone; it's a big hall but it's a good sound system.

"Las Vegas," he yells a bit anyway, " _I'm back!_ "

Most of the South Hall laughs, and Tony throws up one hand with his fingers in a V for _Viva!_ and yells that too.

"Seriously though," he goes on, "or as serious as I ever get, I love this city. Nothing's the same twice, and anything's possible. So when we started putting this little confab together, they asked me, 'Tony, where are we going to put it all?' and I said 'Vegas. It has to be Vegas.' Gotta drop some science on the heads of all the stage magicians around here!"

It's the first time he's been back to Las Vegas knowing that there's _real_ magic hidden within, right under everyone's noses, and being in on the secret is an unbelievable thrill.

He still wants to tackle Loki and sit on him and demand explanations that make more sense. He tried it once; they did _not_ end up talking about magic; neither of them were sorry.

Now, Tony paces around his stage, and it's all his. There's no video waiting to be cued up, no ghost of a father absent far too long: there's only the slide show of pictures from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and snapshots from the rovers. "I mean, why else am I even up here? To tell you what you're doing here? You know that. We're here to put everything we've got together and get our butts to Mars, and _stay_ there! We're here to show the world it can be done. That anything's possible. So where better? You've got the brains and we've got the technology, and I seem to have a working spaceship engine –"

He's perfectly content to bask in the applause that cuts him off, because the _Kite_ tests worked fine. Something else is probably going to go wrong later in karmic justice. (Karmic justice is an engineering _fact._ Ask anyone.) The test ship had a bit of a wobble through the Van Allen belts, and a close call with a piece of space junk drifting around up there, but the _Kite_ had flown, and from what Tony hears, there's a gang of sixteen flight controllers at Vandenberg still being read the Riot Act for conspiring to take the _Kite_ off on a joyride around the Moon. They could have done it, too. And when it had splashed down in the ocean – they'll try a dry landing next time – and once the barge's crew had fished it out, it had been _fine._ A bit dinged and battered, some of its sensors burnt out, but the souped-up repulsor and the descent stabilizers were still sipping happily from the arc reactor secured in its heart.

Next launch gets the new model, but Tony threw himself into the plans for the Expo so much harder once he knew he was going to live to see it.

And here he is. Tony still has no idea how the company got the Las Vegas Convention Center on such short notice – usually it's booked _years_ in advance. He wonders who they displaced, and how much bribery was involved. He looks out over a hall full of dreamers and engineers and designers and scientists and pilots and psychologists and architects and entrepreneurs and even he doesn't know what else –

"– and here we are in Vegas, so here are the stakes, people. Get me a plan – have it hashed out and troubleshot and with the technology lined up ready to go – and I'll get it in motion. Think you can do it?"

The hall _roars,_ and Tony laughs. It's on.

"Super. Don't have too much fun at the casinos while you're here."

* * *

Tony is having too much fun without any casinos involved at all. It's a reminder that he's not the only clever person around, that other people have good ideas, that this world is worth it and kind of awesome, and he gets to be here for it!

He gets to _live_ , and every breath and heartbeat, every conversation about planning for failure and backup systems and parachutes if a repulsor on a descending supply pod fails, every minute spent laughing at the giant screen showing the worst movies about Mars that con-goers could suggest, complete with MST3K shadows pre-projected on the screen and volunteers doing the voices –

It's all good. It's all his to dive into and wallow around in, grimy to his elbows and perfectly happy.

And it's wonderful, too, to realize how far this has grown beyond him. He kicked it into life – even if he was nudged into it – and it would have survived him. Pepper would have kept it running in his memory, if the palladium had killed him first. Pepper understands how much this means to him, that he's doing something more with his life these days than just blowing things up.

Still, Tony keeps the suitcase suit with him for the first couple of days, remembering the heavy, resentful face of an enemy who never got close enough to become a threat.

Looking out over the entry hall as he pauses between mad dashes from one end of the massive, sprawling building to the other, he knows that with this many people who believe in this dream, how could it die?

He has hope. He has his life. He has time. He has a legacy all his own in the making that doesn't have blood on it. What more does he need?

Well, his magician would be nice…

Loki hasn't been around, but Tony keeps looking for him. It feels like the early days. _Is he going to show up?_ Tony keeps wondering, amused and excited, laughter bubbling up into his skull like champagne. _Where will he be? What has he got planned this time?_

Nothing could have changed. This could be two years ago, when Tony's best way of finding the man he still believed to be a charming, clever stage magician was to wander Vegas at random and hope.

But one thing he doesn't ask anymore is, _does he still give a damn?_

Tony's sure he does, now. He'd seen true joy in Loki's eyes, clear in the electric blue shine of the new arc reactor as it lit up, as Tony spat and shuddered with synesthesia. He'd been light-headed and shivering for days afterwards, after the initial high had worn off, and Loki had curled around him and held him through the worst of it, possessive and patient. Amused and sarcastic, sure, but with a pleased, fond note hidden in his voice, there for someone who knew how to listen. Not technically looking after him, but _there._

Loki's around somewhere. He could be back on the Strip fooling everyone, or holed up in his mysterious workshop adding the finishing touches to that metal stick he keeps tinkering with. He might be off in Red Rock Canyon with the horses, or here at the Expo, in his own form or in disguise or invisible.

And Tony's fine with that. He doesn't need to have Loki within reach every second, demanding an accounting of his day and to know exactly what he's doing. He's just happy to know his magician is probably nearby, and that he might at least read the texts Tony sends him at odd moments, or pictures of exhibits and models he particularly liked. Tony has finally stolen and replaced Loki's keeper phone, at great personal risk, he'd like to add.

He could never keep Loki on a tight leash, he knows. Tony's not his great-aunt, with her tame tiger at her heels in the street. He's not going to be the one to confine Loki and tell him what he can and cannot do.

He'd just like to be able to tug on that bond between them every so often, to remind Loki that he's welcome and wanted, because from what Tony understands, the magician sorely needs to know that from _someone._

So Tony can be safe, here. He can be happy and alive, open and free from…most of the shadows.

He just tries not to think about the darkest one, still looming, that he can't even put into words.

* * *

It's Wednesday afternoon when Tony catches a glimpse of a very familiar face out of the corner of his eye.

Maybe it's the colors he sees first, rich green and jet black, a flicker of gold just catching the light as Tony startles and twists around trying to find that familiar signature again. The chemist he's talking to about perchlorate says, "Sir?" in a confused way, and Tony waves her quiet.

Nothing, nothing, no one. Not there. "Sorry, it's fine," he apologizes. "Thought I saw someone. So, what if we irradiated it? More than the regolith gets just from the sun. Could we burn it out –"

The next time he spots Loki is over an hour later, just because there's no one else that can be, four floors up, leaning casually on the railing and surveying the lobby below, ignoring everyone else. Tony could feel the eyes on him all the way from there, and he fights the temptation to stare back.

And loses, laughing up at the alien magician watching over him.

He's pretty sure he can see the answering grin.

Several false alarms later, Tony glances away from a tablet of greenhouse blueprints – they're in red – to find Loki just across the hallway, perched on the broad lip of a decorative planter outside the escalators, where no one is supposed to be.

Under cover of looking at the tablet, he catches Loki's eyes and mouths _I see you_.

Loki smirks at him and disappears.

It does not take a genius of Tony's caliber to recognize this game as hide-and-seek. Loki's not guarding him: he's playing! Stalking Tony to see if he'll notice!

For the first time all week, Tony wishes all eyes weren't on him, or that he could duck out of the main whirlwind of things just for a minute, because two can play at that game now!

The next time he catches Loki at it – head cocked, attention caught, brow furrowed, leaning against a column as he tries to make sense of a 1960s _Doctor Who_ episode on the MST3K screen – Tony raises his hand as if scratching at his nose, and casually wraps his other hand around his wrist.

The _delight_ in those green eyes is something Tony would have thrown this whole shindig for, and then Loki looks away demonstratively and raises his hands to cover his eyes, fingers ticking down in a countdown and smirk clearly visible behind them.

Struggling not to laugh aloud, Tony sidles away and hunts for a corner or an empty room where no one will see him grab the invisibility bracelet Loki had made for him out of the pocket of his suit pants and switch it on. Wearing it is no problem; it's sleek and discreet, a totally innocuous and masculine strip of leather, less intricate than Loki's own ever-ready miniature arsenal.

Finding somewhere no one – and no camera – will spot him disappearing is harder. He idles down the line of people waiting to get into the virtual-reality chamber that's rigged up to provide a simulation of Mars' three-eighths gravity, complete with awkward exosuit. The wait for it still goes around two corners, ending up conveniently near some bathrooms.

That might work as a vanishing point, but Tony can do better.

The doors to the bus stop open and disgorge a flood of people returning from the UNLV campus, which the Expo is using as one of their satellite locations. Through the big glass doors, Tony catches a glimpse of one of the shuttle buses as he weaves through the crowd, returning nods and thumbs-ups and grins and his own mocking version of a salute to the woman with the Master Sergeant wings on her jacket shoulders. No chance of an escape here, but at least those shuttles are hilarious. Someone has rigged them to look like space shuttles.

 _Vegas_. Now _that's_ getting into the local spirit of stupidly outrageous ostentation. What can you do, but play along?

He finally finds his chance in a passage behind an abandoned and empty vendor's cart, the smell of bygone popcorn and hot dogs still lingering around it. Ducking into the small hallway and glancing in both directions to check for witnesses, Tony clicks closed the second clasp and –

Is invisible.

It doesn't feel any different; there are no hissing black shadows crowding around, no blazing Eye of Sauron hunting for him, no whisper of cloak fabric over his vision, no distortion. He could forget, so easily, and Tony finds himself wondering how much of his life Loki has spent this way, hiding from critical eyes.

But never mind that – there's a game to play!

Tony sneaks out of the passage, trying to look everywhere at once. If no one can see him, no one will know to go around him. Best stay out of the main halls, then, and the dealers' room.

The temptation to grab a pretzel from the next cart he encounters is too strong, and Tony heads off to try his luck at the escalators laughing with his mouth full. Two women race past him at a fair clip despite the scary high heels they're in, and he flattens himself to the handrail just in time, heart racing just from the surprise of it, and the bizarre sensation of being so ignored.

Even in the wide windows underneath the blazing sun of the Las Vegas afternoon, he casts no shadow. He catches a huddled trio of three guys in NASA shirts cadging a quick smoke on one of the outdoor patios, panting in the combined heat, and flicks loose pebbles from a nearby planter all around them. One looks up into the sky, mouth ajar, as if he might have been caught in a brief meteor shower, and Tony has to run for it before he can say something sarcastic.

It's so weird to see things this way, like he's seeing them from far away, or like there's a movie going on around him. He can eavesdrop on anyone, go anywhere – the _jokes_ he could pull off, like this!

Sidling into one of the lounge areas, barely able to stop himself from humming the _Mission Impossible_ theme – he stops when he realizes the tune in his head is actually the _Pink Panther_ one – he overhears a guy with a nebula-pattern tie selling his own tickets to the day trip to Vandenberg tomorrow. There's no launch scheduled, but try keeping this crowd away. The chartered plane is full, and so is the mini-fleet of buses.

This entrepreneur owns an SUV, and Tony rolls his eyes invisibly at the price he's charging whoever's on the other end of the phone call for a seat, but moves on. Tie Guy won't be the only one.

Tony grins as he successfully avoids a trio arguing about surface temperatures as they walk around the corner and very nearly into him. But he's getting the hang of it now. Stick close to the walls on the straightaways, swing wide around the corners to see who's coming, and he has to look over his shoulder a lot. Don't get cornered. Don't get cocky. There's a method!

An announcement comes over the PA system for one of the shuttle shuttles, off to the Mars Buggy Speedway, and Tony watches from above as another line forms. In theory, that chunk of the Mojave is a test track for tires designed to deal with the endless, all-pervasive sandy Mars dust, and for cabins that will keep it out.

Judging by the bets being placed among the people headed out there, it's as awesome a racetrack as it sounds.

A flash of green in the corner of his eye makes him startle and tense, but it's just a banner for one of the solar panel companies. He moves on, sneaking gleefully around his own conference, wondering if the game ends when he's spotted, or if Tony's confident enough in his people-avoidance skills to run for it.

Well, this is hide and seek, right? Maybe he should find a place to hide.

He hops randomly between panels for a while. He listens to the architects who want to use static cling to coat dust across the surface of their habitat as an extra shield against ultraviolet radiation. He gets to watch one of the Mars suit designers barrel in to lecture them on the evils of static cling, which makes it so hard to keep dust _out_ of suit joints and people.

Tony's tempted to climb up there and moonwalk across the stage behind the arguing architects, just for a laugh. Next time.

Unfortunately, "next time" is a rogue faction of SI engineers, technicians from Vandenberg, Air Force test pilots, and that guy from X-Plane, and Tony ends up too interested in what they're working on to pull pranks. After all, they're talking about using his arc reactor engines to, at long last, get a plane to fly in the wispy Martian atmosphere.

The effect doesn't have time to pall by the time he slips into a conference room through an open door, blinking through the sudden darkness to make sense of the screen they've got set up, a presentation about mining Mars…

A noise like a _snap!_ right in front of his nose, close enough to feel the small displacement of air, makes him recoil backwards, leaping right into the arms that close around him and the quiet, dangerous laugh a breath from his ear.

"Gotcha," Loki whispers, and Tony laughs silently, knowing Loki can feel that – and, probably, how fast his startled heart is beating.

The argument going on in the room reaches a fever pitch, and under cover of the shouting, Tony leans into the teasing embrace and grins up at him, matching smirk a breath from his own.

"Best two out of three?" he suggests.

"Another time," Loki murmurs, a dark and delicious note creeping into his voice as he adds, "When you have further to run."

And that's…ooh, actually, that's…he's going to have to think about that. Not a game Tony's played before, and not one he'd play with anyone else, but there's something perilously, maddeningly erotic about maybe letting Loki _hunt_ him, knowing he'd enjoy being caught.

He doesn't bother to get himself under control before answering, "I may take you up on that," and hears the adrenaline already spurting through his blood quiver in his voice.

His lover brushes long fingers over the bracelet on his wrist, teasing and tempting. "Am I to understand from this, then, that you tire of your work here?"

"Well, you know what they say about all work and no play…"

"No I don't," says the alien who still hasn't seen enough movies.

With a sigh, Tony twists around and gently thuds his head into the magician's shoulder. "Dammit," he mutters. "Never mind." Pulling away and grabbing Loki's hand – Loki lets him do it – he declares, "C'mon, princess, let's go rock Las Vegas. And I'm putting another movie on our watch list."

"Do I look forward to it?"

He's finally learned to ask that question, after _Rocky Horror Picture Show_. Tony's very proud. "That is _so_ not the point."

* * *

The sun went down hours ago; Tony didn't notice.

He doesn't really have words for what they're doing, which is just strolling around the Strip, not quite hand in hand – Loki's apparent ability to disappear from photos aside, rumors kill, just more slowly – but side by side. The lights in a glittering river, the neon flashing, the tourists to mock and make up stories about, the cascade of music from a suddenly opened car door, the echoes of outdoor performances and the jumble of excited voices, the flare of flash paper from a street magician's hand, the sharp smell of it washed away almost at once beneath the taste in the air of what's probably a phenomenal two-handed hamburger.

He would like to stay here forever, please, in the warmth of the vanished sun that will last for hours still and the crazy lights of the Vegas night. The intoxicating mix of sensory input and chaos all around, and the steady presence at his shoulder that's actually chaos more tightly packed and with more control over where and when it springs. He would like to keep the slightly buzzed feeling of a day spent thinking and working on something he cares about, something that other people care about too, but which pivots on him, which is just how he likes things. He wants to hold on to, forever, the anticipation of knowing he doesn't know what lies ahead but it's going to be _great_.

He's back in Loki's territory, back in Loki's hands, trusting Loki to lead him somewhere he wants to follow. After everything, they've come back here, together still, and now Tony has those secrets he wanted to know so badly, his to protect and keep.

"So the last time we were together like this," Tony says, when their latest batch of targets has moved on, depriving him and his magician of blond girls to invent ludicrous pasts and futures for, at least for the moment, "you know what I wanted to say?"

Loki glances at him a bit sideways, fingertips brushing the stem of his wineglass. How the man's managing to _sprawl_ in one of the metal chairs this patio bar has set out by the street, Tony has no idea. But maybe it's not the chair Loki's so comfortable with, he can barely dare to hope.

 _Maybe it's me._

"Surprise me," Loki invites, casual and amused. The gold threads winding up his sleeves glitter in the neon lighting, catching and distorting the colors; after dark the deep green is a breath away from black.

Tony laughs, almost tempted to say something irrelevant and random and outrageous, just to take him up on it. Instead, he answers with the truth. "That good old cliché. Why don't you come back to my place?"

With his free hand, Loki gestures, quick and neat, no more than a single finger raised and circled. And _god,_ Tony hopes that means they're now invisible, because that smile is pure sin. "Why don't you come back to mine?"

For an instant, Tony can't think beyond pure disbelief. "You're kidding. No way!"

"Why not? You know who I am and what I can do, and I've nothing there to hide anymore."

The last time he leapt to his feet so quickly and clumsily in response to a lover's invitation, Tony thinks he was probably sixteen. "Oh god, yes. Please?"

And there's that _smirk_ ; Tony knows he's going to be saying that a lot tonight, and doesn't care.

* * *

"Okay, but, if I'm invisible, and you're invisible, how come I can see you?" Tony's pestering because he has to have something for his brain to do, even if he's coming very close to ruining this gift – this _trust_ Loki's placing in him – because of it. "Are we like, on the same wavelength? Is that what it is, are we just on a different wavelength from everyone else?"

"I'm allowing you to see me," Loki shrugs, and that open hand ends up on the small of Tony's back, guiding him along this totally ordinary hallway in the Mirage. "I can do that, if I want. I can let just one person see me, and pass unnoticed beneath eyes and cameras. And before you ask, I've kept your _voice_ hidden too, pet."

"Oh. You are totally showing off, aren't you?"

"We knew I do that," Loki mutters. "And _you_ say so."

"We knew _I_ do that."

"We do," and on that, Loki opens a door Tony hadn't even noticed, it's so inconspicuous and out of the way; now that he looks at it, it might be a linen cupboard.

Tony points at it unnecessarily, and checks, "You live in here." It's really dark in there.

The hand extended to him comes complete with rolled eyes; Tony takes it anyway and lets Loki draw him through the door –

– into a complex of rooms that _could not_ have fit within that space.

The ceilings soar, and there are arches between rooms, not doors. A wide and sweeping space frames a low table littered with what Tony's come to recognize as the toys, not the tools, of Loki's magic. The disguises he uses could come from any craft store, only worked so finely that people want to believe they conceal some clever technology. So obviously trappings, that there must be something within to hide. _He_ was fooled, for so long.

The real power is all within the man at his side, who's clicking in midair the fingers Tony isn't clinging to, snapping that wrist out in a gesture of dismissal. He pulls his hand free as Tony stares around at the little fragment of his home Loki's been hiding out in, caught rapt even as Loki takes his jaw in one hand and draws three sharp lines across his skin.

He takes in the rugs in patterns he's never seen strewn across the floor, and the mixed handful of dice piled together on the table – they can't all be from Vegas, unless there's a high-stakes D&D game going on somewhere, or something else that uses a die 20, and there are a couple pieces in there that Tony doesn't recognize at all. A laptop, charge cord trailing away into nowhere, has a very large feather that's probably not from any Earth bird stuck in it like a bookmark. He knows some of those books – he'd given Loki a few of them – and that's the comb he'd picked up once and asked, "Is this _bone?_ " before Loki had snatched it back from him and decided he didn't want to let Tony play with his hair after all.

There's a knife pinning a sketch or a blueprint to the wall, dead center, and another knife right above. It's one of several, evoking the quite likely image of Loki getting bored and playing his own version of darts with the nearest target. Overhead, something that looks like an origami Ouroboros has caught its own tail and is rippling in a contented, self-contained circle, hovering unsupported.

There's an ornate and golden…yes, _goblet_ of blood-dark red wine half-empty and abandoned, paired incongruously with a handful of M &Ms probably from the exhibit up the road. Just next to it is an unopened bottle of what's probably the meanest and most high-octane vodka to ever burn a hole in someone's throat, which Tony wishes he'd gotten his hands on first; it takes a _lot_ to get Loki drunk and he still hasn't managed it. There are torches on the fine, dark wooden walls, glowing with something that isn't electricity and isn't fire. And coals flicker in an elegantly curving brazier, banked low but warm enough that Tony wonders if he can see the air ripple with the heat.

It crouches just outside a doorway, and beyond, Tony's eyes are briefly all for a bed piled high with dark furs, rich and thick and real in ways that would give every animal lover in the country a serious heart attack.

But even that's not enough to distract from the giant picture window, and Tony's heart breaks clean in two at the alien – but distinctive – vista beyond.

 _You keep it right there, always before your eyes,_ he doesn't say. The multicolored stars of Asgard shine over a rolling sea and firelight flickers in the buildings below, and he realizes that he can't see the pipe-organ palace because the view is from inside it. Was this what Loki woke up to, every day when he wasn't stuck here? _You can never forget. You literally can't see past it._

"No," Loki says, and for a moment Tony thinks he said that out loud after all. "Not tonight," he says, almost to himself, and the image disappears.

So do the lights, leaving only the brazier, and in the near-complete darkness there's only Loki's mouth on his, hungry and uncompromising, taking without question or warning, and Tony shudders with helpless desire and lets him. He lifts his own hands only to wrench his tie out of what remains of its loop as his head rolls back in invitation.

The grip wrapped around the back of his neck is gentle even as Loki nips at that open, offered throat, and the mingled wonder and heartbreak of these rooms burns away in the fire flaring out from every touch. It breathes from every brush of skin on skin, feeding on every scrap of suffocating, hindering fabric shed and discarded blindly, fanned higher with every cry.

"All yours, if you'll have me," Tony remembers managing to say, somewhere after his bare back hits lush, deep fur but before he loses himself in sheer decadence of grinding into it. The man pinning him there, lit very slightly into a ghost of himself from the arc reactor's blue light, strums his magician's fingers down the _exact_ lines of well-traced nerves and wipes all further thought from Tony's brain. Because that's _not what he wants,_ he wants his lover in him _right now_ , rough and quick and hungry, hasn't he waited long enough?

Stupid, stupid babbling _mouth_ , because Loki laughs and lifts his hands away just as Tony was finally going to get somewhere anyway, and kisses him far too lightly, and murmurs a hairsbreadth from his lips, "Oh, every way I can possibly think of, until you beg me to stop or you have nothing left to give."

If he could think, he could come up with a better retort than, " _Will you just fucking fuck me already?_ ", but he can't. And if it's the last complete sentence he manages until much later, after he has, as promised, begged – but not to stop; no, it's _more, more_ until he's breathless and blind with it – Tony wouldn't have it any other way.

He's so goddamn lost, and he's so goddamn happy, and he means every word.

Not that there was any doubt, not that there's anything more he can do than surrender and let his mad, glorious alien magician have everything Tony can possibly give him.

* * *

The alarm on his phone is evil.

Especially because Tony has no idea where it is, and so he can't make it shut up.

Of course, he has no idea where he is, but that's hardly the first time that's happened to him. Not for a while, though, not since – Loki, Tony remembers, and the feeling of luxurious fur surrounding him, all but the warmth of familiar, solid flesh all along his back, makes as much sense as anything to do with his magician ever does.

"Shut that thing off," Loki grumbles into Tony's hair, and contradicts himself by wrapping an arm around his chest and holding him tighter. "Or I'll break it."

Tony mutters, "Don't wanna move," and pushes back into the embrace, writhing with regret that he'd ever wanted to go to that panel. His past self is stupid. His present self has better ideas, and they all involve writhing into the evident arousal right against his back.

He can feel Loki's growling purr of interest in return, and damn the alarm, it'll turn off by itself eventually. But the hand on Tony's chest moves away, gesturing sharply in midair and waiting expectantly.

The offending phone hovers through the air and lands in that open hand, and Tony has only a moment to stare in wonder before it's dropped on his face. "Turn it off!"

Chuckling, Tony fingerprints in and switches off the alarm, and he's about to toss it back where it came from when he notices the missed call and the text message.

He reads the text message.

He listens to the voicemail.

And his world falls apart.

"Tony?" Loki asks, burrowed back into the furs and half-asleep again, disheveled and lovely and perfectly desirable, and Tony can't understand how Loki can look so warm when a sheet of ice has just wrapped itself around the man right next to him. It's too cold even to hurt, but a single strike will shatter it into frozen knives, tearing him apart.

"What's wrong?" A bit of a drowsy laugh twines into his voice. "Don't tell me you've misplaced that ruddy planet."

There's no joke Tony can make in return, and he doesn't try. Instead, he brings up the text message and holds out the phone.

Loki sits up, long hair everywhere, and doesn't even bother to comb it out of his face before he takes the phone. That's what's ending here.

Just two words, and it's over.

 _Thor's here._

Tony can't bear to watch him read it, but he can't look away, because these are his last chances. Because every word, every moment is now a farewell, and he needs to hoard them all like dragon's gold.

"Oh," says Loki. Just that.

And at least he doesn't laugh that he was right. He doesn't say anything triumphant about his plans falling into place, he doesn't even smile. Tony couldn't handle that.

More than anything, he wants to say stupid things like, _no, Loki, no. Forget it. Just…say hello to your brother and tell him to send your love to your mom, and a sharp middle finger to your dad, or whatever it is Asgardians do, and just forget it, okay?_

 _Stay here. I want you to stay._

… _you're never going to stay. God, I wish…_

"Well," he says instead, still trapped in ice. "I guess we should go."

Loki doesn't meet his eyes as he hands the phone back. "I suppose." He doesn't sound happy about it, either.

But he still gets up, and gets dressed, and Tony doesn't have any choice but to follow.

* * *

"Hey, Pep, it's me," he says, while he's putting on yesterday's socks. "I'm not going to be at the thing today." He can't even remember what's going on today. "Tell people I'm sorry, okay? They'll know you're lying, but they won't be surprised."

" _Tony, is something wrong?"_ Pepper asks. He's never appreciated her enough.

"I've just got to be out of town for a couple of days," he deflects, rather than saying _yes_ at top volume. "I know I'm ditching my own party. But. Stuff."

" _All right. What do I tell people?"_

"Hell if I know. Make something up," he says, rather than the retort that springs to mind, which is _family emergency_.

Not his family; Loki's made that clear.

" _Tony?"_ says Pepper, before he can hang up.

"Yeah?"

" _Good luck. I hope…good luck."_

He has to close his eyes and press the phone against his heart. Pepper always knows more than he tells her, somehow. Pepper knows _him._ "…thanks," he manages. _Love you, Pep. You're the best._

* * *

All Tony's packed is the suitcase suit – his quarters in Mercury are already stocked up and ready for him – and all Loki's brought along is that familiar old travel bag, engraved metal rod stowed within it. Tony still hasn't managed to get a straight answer about what it is. A weapon, is his best guess, or the anchor for a complicated bit of magic ready to trap an alien warrior even Loki is slightly afraid of.

At this eleventh hour, he doesn't have the heart to ask. Asking means prying into the details of the scam that's taking Loki away. He's seen the shape of it, he knows broadly what Loki intends, but the more he knows, the more real it seems. Tony's driving them towards it, revving the car harder than it needs and trying to recapture the delight a fast car and an open road usually bring him, but he's trying to think about anything else.

Even the sight of the metal rod vanishing into a bag seemingly too small to hold it hadn't lifted Tony's mood any, and ordinarily that's good for an afternoon's entertainment. Last month, he'd managed to steal it; he was ten seconds away from pouring sand into it to measure its true capacity when Loki caught up to him and threatened to turn his entire house into the illusion of a shifting, impossible maze.

Look, he wants this grand plan of Loki's to succeed, okay? He gets that Loki feels like he's stuck here, trapped and abandoned and rejected; he knows what it feels like to _need_ to go home and reclaim a life. But he wants it to fail, too, just for a little while longer. Surely there's a Plan C out there, one that will take a nice long time to play out, time they could have together.

Tony knows these are bad thoughts. Look at that conscience crawling out of its hole and kicking in. Maybe he can kick it back under. Shouldn't be hard.

But that's what he wants. He never claimed to be a good person. He's not a hero, okay? He's a selfish, greedy, narcissistic hedonist, and when he fights it's because someone's tried to take something of his away. Sometimes that's his stuff, his tech, the suits. Sometimes that's the few people he cares about for real. Sometimes what he's fighting to keep are the stories he tells himself. He wants to believe he's not a monster, and that means standing up for the _right_ that Pepper and Rhodey believe in, or against the wrong that takes bad things and makes them worse.

They're traveling light, but there's enough baggage between them for a trailer, and the silence lingers. Tony fiddles with the car's speakers for a while, but it's all so stupidly upbeat, or just plain stupid, he can't stand the noise and turns it off again.

All around the car, the high desert begins to climb, less sand and more rocks, mountains and canyons in sharp opposition, and the occasional Joshua tree reaching pleadingly for the sky. Rock faces in red and gold and cream and brown bake in the morning sun; the ones in the distance are almost blue with all the oxygen in the way.

"Mercury isn't a big place," he says abruptly, "so you've got limited space to work with, unless you're going to take whatever it is you're planning outside. Then you've got half of Nevada. But if you make too much of a show in their top-security bomb range, the Air Force might drop a missile on you. If I need to call Rhodey and have him call them off, some warning would be nice."

Loki accepts the discussion with what could almost be relief. "What can you tell me about it?" he asks.

"Howard and his atomic testing buddies used to run this region, conducting experiments out here. You saw that museum exhibit, a couple years back. That's all over now, but there's still a lot of military testing going on out here. Hey, actually, Area 51's up this way," he says, just to be mean.

Loki freezes, like a guitar string tuned too tight, and Tony relents. "It's okay. They don't really have captured aliens there, you know, that's just _X-Files_ stuff. Just a story. They test planes there, that's all. I've been. Had a poke around for UFOs, didn't find any. Got a couple of generals to look like someone'd put salt in their coffee and they'd just had a great big gulp."

He swerves the car around a Jeep that looks like it's standing still by comparison. Heading into military territory, not all that far from America's Playground. "Mercury's the jumping-off point for an enormous weapons disposal range now. Not much of a town, but not bad for a military base. Better than people think, anyway. I've got some guys on-site."

"For what…oh, destroying the weapons you reclaimed?"

Tony hates that this car is in motion – which usually never happens – because he wants to put his head down on the steering wheel and refuse to drive any further. _You keep up with me. How can I lose that?_

"Yeah. This is where they go, when they come back to me. It's a safe place to take 'em apart if we can, or blow 'em up if we can't. I fly out here sometimes to check on it."

It's a short flight from Malibu, and while he's got someone he trusts in command here, Tony's not going to let this go. He swore that he'd find his weapons and make sure they never hurt anyone again, and he still believes in that. He could have burned out his whole life on it, if he hadn't been pushed towards brighter things. So he keeps a mean, tough eye on the operation here whenever he gets the chance, and Pepper keeps a sharp watch on the people, making sure they can be trusted.

"I mean, the entire region is mildly radioactive, thanks to Howard and his pals. Keeps the tourists away. But it shouldn't be a problem, not for me or Mystery Inc."

"Why not?" The question could be idle, just a prompt to keep him talking, but Tony needs to talk. He can't sit here in silence like he's driving to a wake; he needs to memorize the way Loki meets his eyes when the magician asks questions, and looks away when it's his turn to answer them. Alert for deception, Tony thinks that is, and then giving away as little as possible.

Tony taps his fingers against the arc reactor beneath his shirt. "We're not going anywhere near the worst of it. Just a tiny uptick in the background radiation, in and around Mercury. We're not going to be here more than a couple of days, right?" _No, no, no_ , that's what he doesn't want to think about… "And even if you do take off into the hot zones, you and your brother have that super-healing going on, right?"

Scrambling for a change of subject, he seizes on a silly thought he'd had weeks ago. "You know, I just realized, together the two of you must look terribly Christmassy. All red and green."

Loki laughs, too casual, not quite real. "Nothing so friendly," he almost confirms. "One of our father's generals once said of us that Thor was a bloody nuisance – oh," he cuts himself off, sounding pleasantly surprised, "that works in your tongue too – and I was an acid-tongued viper."

Flinching even as he grins, Tony comments, "Harsh."

"But not untrue," Loki admits wryly.

God, listen to them. They're chatting like strangers rather than saying any of the real things, and they both know it. But 145 kilometers in a small car with nothing but desert and military barriers and billboards, with the poison of an actual argument between them, would be hell.

Loki asks about the Stars Expo, and Tony talks about robots for nearly fifty kilometers without taking a breath, because that's something he can handle. He forces himself to forget where they're going and why, and explains von Neumann machines, and how completely unlikely it is that self-replicating robots could eat even a significant dent into Mars, even if they went rogue. Maybe in a million years or so, if the programming was really good and they had the capacity to evolve and redesign themselves.

Fifteen minutes after that, Mercury is on the horizon and suddenly _right here,_ in that deceptive way of desert roads.

"There's more to it than you can see," Tony explains, almost idling the car down one of the loosely-gridded roads. "There are tunnels underground so satellites won't notice the extra. I'm not keen on caves anymore, but they're not half bad. Like an office building but with no windows, and they've borrowed some of the tricks Vegas uses to make places feel bigger than they are, attention to lighting and not just fluorescent crap. Better if we stay topside, though."

The designated residence for the top Stark Industries representative is above-ground, which Tony is always glad of, and it's the work of a moment to park the car beneath the familiar overhang – even if he usually flies in – and get the house unlocked.

Not a big place. Not up to his standards. Kind of spare, kind of generic, like the oversized hotel room it is. Bedroom, bathroom, living room, kitchen, office. The basics.

But then, they're not here to play.

"So what now?" Tony asks, stretching out the slight stiffness from the drive and putting his feet up on the other arm of the living room couch like everything's fine, like it's not a loaded question.

Loki doesn't join him, and Tony doesn't fail to notice that; he leans one shoulder against the doorframe instead and stares into the middle distance, thinking. "I would know my battlefield before I fight upon it, if a battle is what awaits me. It may not come to that."

"Yeah, there's a reason we're not doing this in Vegas," Tony mutters. Even he can't imagine the collateral damage Sin City might have taken, playing host to a fight between Loki and Thor. He's seen Loki fight, even if only in practice, and he remembers what a mess the battle between himself and Stane caused, and from everything Loki's said, Thor could knock Tony across the room with a single swing of that magic warhammer.

The person he was four years ago wants to see what the brothers could do, against each other; silly, shallow, consequence-free Tony recommends popcorn. The man he is now, the unlikely superhero and maybe, on his best days, actual hero, knows that's something they need to avoid.

"Okay, so, town's your stage and your arena, as much as I can get it for you. Still full of soldiers, so you're going to need an ID of sorts, although I can't imagine what. Have you seriously survived in twenty-first century America for almost eight years without an ID?"

Loki smiles a bit; he'd vanished every time Tony had pulled the car up to a checkpoint. "I have my magic, and that's all I need."

"Illusionist at work," Tony says through the knot in his throat. "Right. I'm – I'm gonna miss that."

Everything he wants to say is choking him, and he knows if he lets it out it's going to come out as a scream. It's almost a relief when Loki backs away and disappears, out to explore this new place and set his long-readied trap.

Still, it's some time before Tony can muster up the effort of will it takes to get up off the couch again, loose spring poking at his shoulder blade or not, because what's even the _point_ anymore?

* * *

But that evening, with the remains of a frigid, awkward, commissary-takeout dinner still on the table, something snaps.

Tony doesn't even know what starts it. Once, years ago, he'd been at the beach, wading around in the ocean up to his knees. He can't remember why, probably chasing after a pretty girl in a bikini. And between one blink and the next, a wave had knocked him over and an undercurrent had dragged him out into deeper waters, far over his head. He'd flailed like a sock in a washing machine, with no idea how he'd gotten there or how to get out, like a piece of his life had been cut out and the edges glued together.

Someone has been rough-editing his life again, because somehow he and Loki are shouting at each other across the meager living room, and all Tony remembers blurting out is, "I don't want you to go."

"It's not up to you! It's not _about_ you! Asgard is my _home_ , Tony, why can't you understand that?" Loki growls, eyes flashing, face pale and drawn tight with anger. "I like you, I do; I said. But I must go home, I _have to._ "

Well, he's in the depths of this already, so he might as well swim. "I don't get it," Tony challenges, feeling his hands form fists and fighting to keep them by his sides. "Why? And don't –" he cuts Loki off before the magician can even get out a word. "I get that it's your home. Fine. But I don't think you were any happier there than you were in Las Vegas when I first met you! Tell me I'm wrong! Tell me you were happy there!"

"It's _my world,_ " his lover retorts, not rising to it. "Do you have the slightest inkling of what's at stake without me there?" He snaps a hand across the space between them as if clearing a chessboard, knocking all its pieces flying. "Thor is a battle-hungry idiot most of the time, and a genial fool the rest. He's never met a fight he didn't want to leap into nor an impulse he didn't follow."

The snarl becomes a sneer, dismissive even as Loki keeps his distance, refusing to engage with more than sharp words. "You realize that there have been wars among the Realms that could smash your Midgard to ashes and never notice, and it is _Asgard_ that holds most of the weapons that remain? Of all people," he nearly spits, "you should know the responsibility that places upon me!"

Tony grits his teeth in anger and frustration as Loki goes on, almost pleading. "I cannot let Thor have free run of them! I cannot let our father put that much power in his hands, because he'll use it, and not carefully!" That muscle in his jaw pulls as tight as ever, that little tell Tony learned to spot early on, the most visible indicator of the tension running through that long, lean body. "I told you I have repaired what he has broken, all our lives. But Asgard? The Eternal Realm, in all her glory? I could not bear to see what Thor will wreak upon Asgard with his carelessness."

For an instant, he's all the prince he's named himself as, and the princess Tony calls him, too – beauty and grace and power and pride, and Tony would appreciate that much more if he wasn't scrabbling at his last chance to keep what he wants so very badly, even as Loki slips away through his hands.

But anger overrules everything, and Loki growls, "And if it cannot be Thor – it _should not_ be Thor – then it must be me! I have a duty to return, I am a prince of Asgard, and I have more than one world resting on my actions and if my strength is enough to hold my brother's more foolish impulses at bay." He snarls and steps back – attack and retreat in a single motion – and draws himself up into something regal and unattainable, incongruous in this patchy, ordinary, generic living room, but somehow untouched by it. He's not part of the room, or this world, and it doesn't matter.

Every word casts Earth and everything – everyone, and the man standing helplessly, wordlessly before him – away, and Loki lashes out as sharply as any hissing whip.

"And if you cannot understand that," the alien prince says, "be damned with you. Asgard is where I belong."

Hands in fists and ten thousand angry words in his throat, the edges of his vision going black as his furious, too-short breaths starve his ragged lungs, Tony locks his feet to the cheap carpet and refuses to show how much that hurts. The sheer anger, blood-red and churning, is stronger; he can cauterize his wounds beneath the wave of rage and brief, sudden hate that washes over him like that riptide. But they've been here before, trembling on the edge of violence, and Tony well remembers how helpless he was against the inhumanly powerful warrior who could kill him in a moment.

It doesn't take the Incredible Brain to know that if Tony answers any of that here and now, with how angry he is and how angry Loki is in his own right, he might not survive it. Good thing, too, because the next-most coherent thought Tony can muster is a scream of _fine! Fine! Damn you, too, enjoy your hidebound, pretentious planet and your stuck-up royal highness can go rot! I wish I'd_ never _met you –_

And the thought dies there as soon as the words form, because it's not true. Those flames gutter out, and survival instinct takes over before he, too, breaks something that can't be repaired. Tony knows he doesn't have the slightest idea how dangerous Loki can be, really. He's seen fury in green eyes, he knows Loki can and will kill on a whim, and there's an aura – as unscientific as that is, but Tony can't think straight right now – around the magician that suggests Tony is poking a wounded, cornered tiger.

What he says is, "I can't do this."

What he means is, _I can't stand here and watch you cast off everything you've learned and everything you've become. I can't watch you decide you're done with being human. I can't watch the man who pesters for egg drop soup from every takeout menu that offers it, and who learned to type practically overnight, be replaced by the alien prince you used to be. I don't know if I know that guy. I don't know if you'll still be you._

What Loki no doubt hears is rejection, from the way he recoils and the tiny, tiny flare of panic in his eyes, but Tony can't watch that, either.

So he turns away, and he walks out of the door without looking back, out into the darkened streets of Mercury. Just to get his mind right, as Rhodey would say, and to find some air that isn't tainted with his rage and Loki's, feeding off each other and tearing each other apart.

Tony slams the door behind him, and both car doors just for the sound they make, and by the time he looks up from his stomping feet, he's made it halfway across town. No one else is out, or if they are, they're hiding from the crazy civilian storming around like he's looking to reenact the mess that poor bastard Banner made of Harlem last year.

Tony smash.

Maybe it'd help.

Nothing's going to help.

He needs more doors to slam.

Instead, he stares out at the desert beyond the edge of Mercury, while the war going on inside his head blows up watchtowers that couldn't see any better options, and digs trenches in the arguments Tony's been going over endlessly, and fires volleys across the corpses of might-have-beens, and somewhere up above it all, planes scream in despair and protest as they fall.

Pacing around the humble, dusty streets of this hidden town, the foothills and mountains looming but the stars above endless, Tony looks up and tries to find Mars in the sky. What a wonderfully quiet place it sounds like right now. The people who go there won't have _time_ for things like this. Of course, they'll probably be smart enough not to take infuriating, impossible, self-centered, beautiful alien magician-princes with them.

Life used to be so simple. But that's a lie worthy of the trickster god Tony's tied his ravaged heart to.

There might be a hell of a fight here tomorrow, but at least it's only this weathered bunker of a place in the way of those two. After all these years, it's going back to its roots – this was a bomb range where chunks of uranium were banged together, and Tony's brought quite the explosive with him, ready to clash with the one coming to meet them in a little astrophysicist's van.

Wandering and fuming, Tony chews over everything he can't say, and gets madder with every bite.

Finally, he decides _to hell with it._

Loki's leaving. He can't hurt Tony any worse than that.

Mercury isn't big enough to get lost in, not aboveground, and a minute or two later, Tony's back up the stairs of the little front porch and in front of his temporary front door. Too late he wonders if Loki's locked him out – _man_ , he'd feel stupid – but the handle turns in his grip and opens on the still-lit entryway within.

In passing, he kicks the release for the suitcase suit, sitting discreetly in the half-open door to the office, and crouches down to let the right gauntlet settle into place around his hand and forearm, metal shifting almost like a living thing.

The little living room is…less destroyed than Tony expected, actually. There's a heavy knife buried up to its hilt in the cinderblock wall, and the fake plant in one corner has been knocked sideways, and the blocky coffee table is listing as if someone very strong has slammed his fists down onto it. But the only thing on fire is the wood blazing in the fireplace, which hadn't been there when Tony left, wood or fire.

Loki's curled up in one of the equally blocky armchairs, which is sideways-on to the fireplace. He's stone-still not with unconsciousness or relaxation but with tightly controlled unhappiness, and doesn't look away from the fire when Tony closes the door behind him, nor does he say a word.

Tony watches him breathe beneath that long jacket of his for a silent, tense minute. He counts along on a hunch, and finds _exactly_ four seconds between each inhale and exhale. Trying to calm himself down, keeping that fierce temper of his on a leash. In other words, restraining himself.

And _fuck that._

This is perhaps the maddest thing he's ever done in his life – and there's a long, long list – but… _I want to see you_ roar _, my tiger. Didn't I_ say _I wanted it all?_

 _Show me what you got…_

Finally, Loki moves, rising from the armchair and drawing himself up into that arrogant, regal stance again. He's refusing to show any weakness or submission, standing taller than Tony to intimidate him, but Tony literally does not give a damn.

And he steps forward, and without warning or leadup, brings that gauntlet around and punches Loki square in the jaw.

The metal and the impact cushioning protect Tony's hand even if he doesn't have the full weight of the suit behind it, letting him follow through without worrying about the recoil, so all of it goes into snapping Loki's head sharply to one side. _Thanks for the sparring matches, lover; I know you can take worse and not even bruise_.

The shudder of impact that reaches Tony's shoulder feels like the first real thing he's done since the world ended this morning.

… _and let's see how sharply I've gotta crack the whip to make it happen._

Loki stumbles back a couple of paces, reeling and shocked, green eyes behind that veil of dark hair dazed and blank with incomprehension. Almost at once, he's caught himself on the back of the armchair, and he comes back up _furious_ , death in his eyes _–_

"You're wrong," says Tony.

He presses his advantage while he has it, careening down the razor's edge while it's his to race along, while the lethal, enraged creature he's facing is still too stunned for words. Loki's pulling himself back to his feet so hard his fingers have gone straight through the fabric of the armchair, but he didn't expect Tony to come back in swinging and it's cost him. Blood and adrenaline thrum through every centimeter of Tony's body so strongly he wants to shudder and scream with it, but he can't, he doesn't have time, and he follows blow with blow.

"You don't belong there, and you just can't see it," he accuses, feeling the truth in his mouth like clear water after long, exhausted labors. "You should be somewhere _everything_ you can do is appreciated, and where you don't have to hide what you are! And –"

A strangled noise of protest and disbelief has escaped Loki's throat, and, unable to stop, Tony jabs an armored finger into his face as if Loki couldn't snap it off if he tried. "Shut up," he orders, "I'm not done –"

"Oh, you're done," Loki hisses, mad enough to spit poison like the viper he'd once been called, but Tony isn't going to stand for that.

"I said _shut up!_ " he yells, and Loki's eyes go wide and wild, and he draws away, wrong-footed and lost.

Tony doesn't let him go, closing the distance between them again and keeping that accusing finger pointing at him. "You are tearing yourself apart trying to get back to somewhere that _doesn't want you_ , and fuck that noise, Loki." He's snarling just as fiercely, and the need to grab this wary, wounded creature and shake him until he _understands_ is unbearable. "You belong somewhere that knows how amazing you are, and with someone who can put up with what a monomaniacal jackass you are. And maybe that's not me –" He can hear the cry of protest in his own voice, but it's not going to stop him now. "– and maybe I'd even be able to live with that. But you're so fixated on going back where you came from that you can't even see that you could belong _here!_ "

Loki's shaking his head, _denial_ , but he can't get a word in edgeways. Tony always could talk for the world, and now he's off on a proper tear. He can see his magician trying to interrupt, but Tony's torn something open and he can't stop, he _won't_ stop. Punching won't solve this, however good it had felt, but he's fighting for something he wants nonetheless.

He doesn't let people take his stuff – _and you are_ mine _, if I can keep you, and god, I'm going to fight for you!_

"And so what's the rest of the plan?" Tony tears onwards, deliberately mocking, tweaking the tiger's nose and not even caring if he gets bitten; let him _try_ , Tony will bite back! "So you run off home, right, and your daddy praises you for being _so_ clever for a minute or two, and then what, Loki? Then what?"

It shouldn't feel that good that Loki actually hesitates, unsure if he's genuinely being asked a question or if Tony's going to jump all over him again.

It doesn't. Much.

"You tell me," Loki snaps finally, holding his ground and only managing to look cornered as his shoulders hunch just a bit, defensive as he recoils. "You're the one who got what he wanted."

For a moment Tony has no idea what he's talking about, and then he remembers a darkened workshop and a flickering filmstrip and Loki staring at it with that exact same cringe in his body. He remembers words of praise never spoken in life, not to the child or the angry teenager who needed to hear them.

He remembers how much they had hurt.

"What, that video of Howard's?" Tony spits out. "You know what? You know _what,_ Loki? To hell with it."

Loki stares at him like he's speaking a different language, like the words hadn't lined up properly.

So Tony lays it out for him. "If that's what you're pinning all your hopes on, something like that, you're in for a nasty surprise. Because when it finally comes, _if_ it finally comes, it's too little, too late, and it _doesn't help._ "

He grits his teeth against the anger those recorded words had set on the boil, because it's still seething in him. He can forget, most of the time; it was so easy to focus on all that was good about the last few absolutely perfect weeks because he'd had his own work and his own life and his own triumphs and joys, 100% Ghost Howard-free.

"You think a couple words of praise can wipe out the _years_ of neglect and disdain that came before it? You think that counts for anything? _No one_ can make that OK with a few words. And I don't care if your dad's the king of the universe or an actual god, because everything you've said, and everything you haven't –"

The bitterness lurking beneath Loki's stories, the desperate need coupled with the rejection of any question that probes too closely into that, the scaffolding Loki had built for himself in that absence…oh, Tony knows those things. Tony doesn't talk about Howard more than he has to, doesn't even refer to him as _dad_ if he can help it. He chases spotlights and pretty people and for so long he'd turned them away in the morning like they didn't exist.

He'd never smuggled a puppy into his bedroom, because he'd _built_ his own pets.

But his mouth is still moving, the words spilling out of him even as he shoves aside the memory and goes on. "– that all tells me he's a _shit_ dad. And I know from shit dads, Loki. What matters is what he _did_ , or what he didn't do, not what he might say if you're perfect enough, if you're what he wants you to be. Whatever that is."

Tony's gauntleted hand has balled into a fist again, but with the other he reaches out, and doesn't hide his disappointment when Loki recoils from it like Tony's trying to hand him a scorpion. "And to hell with what mine wanted me to be – I'm not playing his game anymore! And you got me to see that! You inspired me to do more, and I don't care what your motivations were, because I am so, so grateful, Loki. I would have loved you the rest of my life just for that." The word escapes him without thought, spoken aloud at last.

"But you don't make it fucking easy, you know that?" Tony spits as Loki backs away another step towards the fireplace, pale skin flushed with something between rage and shame, nostrils flaring as he fights for breath to power the words he's choking on.

Tony rolls right over them – he's always wanted a steamroller – and accuses, "So let me tell you what happens when you walk out that door and find your brother on the other side, when you spring your clever little trap and get everything you're reaching for."

He jabs that accusing finger at Loki again, pinning him there untouched. " _Nothing changes._ You go right back to fixing your brother's messes and hiding what you can do. Not because no one knows it's possible, like here, but because they might scowl at you! Well, fuck them! And if that's what you want, then _fine!_ But just for one second, you will goddamn admit that it's not the only thing you could do!"

"You can't talk to me like that!" Loki blurts out, taken so far aback Tony might as well have kicked his feet out from under him and dumped him on that gorgeous ass. And there's the goddamn prince. Not the one with the archaic and graceful manners, bowing over Pepper's hand, but the child who'd been promised a throne and then seen it slip away to the favored sibling, with nowhere to go but down. Locked into who he thinks he should be, rather than who he _could_ be.

"Then _someone should,_ " Tony snarls back.

The pure shock and incomprehension on those angular features is glorious, even as part of Tony hurts in sympathy. Why couldn't this have been easier? Why does he have to inflict the pain of illusions torn away on someone he cares for, even if Loki, of all people, should know deception when he sees it?

But it's always harder, when it's self-deception. It gets into your bones and becomes part of you, becomes how you get out of bed in the morning and how you go to sleep at night. It's the wound you learn not to poke at, because it hurts too much, and so it scars over even as the pus and rot beneath remains.

 _Goddammit,_ Tony thinks. _I believe in you. So I'm going to kick your ass until you believe it too._

Loki rallies somehow, snarling and aggressive and sullen. He twists away onto a different tangent, but Tony knows he's doing it, and he's not falling for it this time. "Does it wound you so that my life is not all about you? How _dare_ you? It isn't even about _me!_ The last time I left Thor overlong to his own devices – I left to study another form of magic, to fold it into my own – I returned to find all in chaos, like a wounded beast lashing out blindly! It took me _years_ to set things right and stabilize the affairs of our world into something that could heal without scar."

He shakes his head, denial and anger; the firelight at his back casts sharp-edged shadows across his face and the rigid line of his shoulders. "I had to bribe and threaten and fight and confront allies and enemies alike across four Realms, those Thor had offended or encouraged unwisely, and all unremarked-upon! I pulled my world back from war all on my own, because everyone else was too blinded by their golden prince to notice the work _I do_ to keep things intact!"

The magician wraps his arms around himself defensively, but he's shutting Tony out, and _no, you don't understand, you're not listening –_ "You think I don't know what they think of me?" Loki asks, words bitter. "You think I don't hear the slurs and the harsh words? The jests at my expense, and the dismissals out of hand, all the muttered insults and spiteful faint praise? _I know,_ Tony. I know. It's simple to hear what people say behind your back when invisibility comes so readily to hand."

His mouth twists chagrin and a nasty anticipation, both at once. "You'll see," he warns. "Be wary where you use that for yourself, pet; I almost would I had not given it to you. But they _need me_."

And there's nothing Tony can say to that. Nothing but, "I need you."

Loki bites into his lower lip and looks away. "…no you don't," he says quietly.

The sigh rips itself out of Tony's lungs like his last breath. "Well," he manages to say, jamming a falsely lighthearted note into it even as it fights to escape him, "like I said. You're wrong."

How ironic that now it's him speaking truths Loki's not ready to hear, but this is Tony's last chance, and he doesn't have the impossible waiting for the snap of his fingers, or anything his alien prince can touch. All he has is words.

"They threw you away, Loki," Tony says, persisting. He tries to lower his voice so he's not actually yelling anymore. "You keep saying _cast down_ , but it's the same thing, isn't it? Like this –" He makes a fist with his left hand, because the right is still locked and ready, and demonstrates, as if throwing something down. Discarding it.

"So fuck 'em. God, you said it, didn't you?" he remembers suddenly. "Last year…how was that just last year? You said you knew when you weren't wanted." The second time Tony had taken him down into the workshop, when Rhodey had come to visit and first met Loki. And Loki had put a hand on Tony's shoulder and smiled, he'd made it a joke… "Well, why the hell don't you know when you _are?_ "

The fire behind the low grate is lapping at the edges of that long jacket Loki likes to wear, not the full surcoat but suggestive of it. There's nowhere else he can go except straight through Tony, and Tony doesn't even care that Loki _could_ , if that was the only way he could escape.

"I didn't ask to be here," Loki says sullenly, like a child.

He means _on Earth_ , and Tony's laugh is so ragged it might actually hurt his throat. "Aw, hell, Loki. Nobody here did. We come into this world screaming, and we never stop. But we're stuck with it."

Tony takes a pace backwards – not backing off, but enough to look Loki over, something that even now, even with everything on the line and words he doesn't say dying of exposure in the bitter air between them, he always enjoys doing. And he smiles with no humor at all.

"Welcome to the human race, you idiot."

"No," Loki spits rejection, fury and desperation warring in his eyes. " _No._ I want – I have to –"

Lifting his jaw and narrowing his eyes confrontationally, Tony bares his teeth in deliberate mimicry and throws out a challenge, because at least then he'll know. At least then there'll be a line drawn, and he'll know where he stands. "You once nearly tore my face off for saying you didn't care about me," he reminds his lover. "Look me in the eye and tell me I was right. Tell me you don't care."

This is not about Asgard; Tony can't argue Asgard. He's never been responsible for an entire world, not for more than minutes when he fought to stop a madman before that particular line of evil could get enough of a grip to burn it all down. Not more than spot fixes, Iron Man putting out fires. He's never worked in someone's shadow, trying to keep up with them before they break something that can't be fixed; Tony's never found a shadow he could live in for more than a day.

This is, as usual, all about him.

Well, hell, that's what Tony knows how to do.

But when his gambles backfire, they backfire big, and Loki glares right back, and there's something deliberately _nasty_ in his voice and twisting those pale features into a devil's mask as he declares, hard and cold, " _I don't –"_

Tony takes another swing at him before he can finish that sentence, not hesitating for even that crucial moment.

And the gauntlet goes straight through the sneering illusion he's been shouting at for god knows how long, image flickering out around the strike like a bad TV. His fist slams into the slightly grimy wall, and not quite through to the chimney beyond, but jagged shards of cinderblock dust explode out from the new little crater.

 _I knew it,_ Tony thinks but does not say. _I landed a punch once. You were never going to give me a second shot –_

"You fucking liar, Loki," he says instead as he pulls the gauntlet free and turns to survey the room, looking for the flicker, the shadow not quite right, the tells Loki _doesn't leave_ because he's just that good, and Tony wants all of that. "Where the hell are you? I know you're here!"

And he pushes: "You're going to insult me like this, you can damn well do it to my face."

The silence is almost unreal, Tony's been yelling so long. He doesn't understand a world without it anymore.

The room looks empty, the door to the hallway and the door to the kitchen just as they were before, the fake ficus plant just as it'd been left, the glass of whiskey Tony had brought along from dinner still balanced on the arm of the couch; it's empty, it's fine. No stray shadow gets caught by the firelight; no impression of fingers can be seen dug into armchair back or couch cushion. None of the painfully generic pictures on the walls have been knocked askew by someone brushing past them. There isn't even the dent of a footprint in the nap of the carpet, although this is kind of nasty old carpet, so it's all equally beaten down.

But he stands his ground, and waits.

It's no reward at all when, almost two minutes later, a patch of air in the corner by the ficus plant shudders and Loki phases into view.

He's got those long legs drawn up to his chest, and his face hidden behind them, forehead resting on the arm wrapped around his knees. His other hand is buried in his hair, knuckles whiter than even his normally pale skin.

Tony's willing to bet that he's not crying – and that no one ever sees him cry – but he's plainly and totally unhappy.

Apparently Tony's kicked his ass well and good.

Or, very possibly, Loki's holding himself still because the instant he moves, Tony is a dead man. Has he finally crossed a line? Has he finally provoked this alien warrior, who kills so easily, into cutting his throat just to shut him up? The instant of fear is a jarring, screaming note like feedback, singing above the churning bass line of his own pounding anger.

"Leave me alone," Loki says, voice flat where it isn't muffled.

"Well, that would go against everything I just yelled at you," Tony answers matter-of-factly, not letting the relief show. This beaten-up guest house would be a terrible and rather anticlimactic place to die. He crouches down beside his magician and reaches out with his unarmored hand, and for a split second wonders who he's praying to when he thinks _please –_

He lets his fingers brush through a lock of Loki's hair, and doesn't sigh with the relief at the familiar touch. This one's real.

"So, no," he concludes, and sits down next to Loki, shoulder to shoulder. He doesn't demand anything, he doesn't pick up the fight where they'd left off, doesn't mention the ultimatum he'd thrown down with nothing to lose. He doesn't fight with people who aren't up for it; he's no bully, rubbing salt in wounds he's carved open, so close to his lover's heart. Tony just sits there, and gets his breath back, being there with him.

 _On your side, Loki, if you want me there. Aren't we awesome enough together to find a better way?_

"Go away."

"Not gonna," Tony retorts almost cheerfully, tipping his head back against the wall and looking around idly. Look, there's a moth in the room. Maybe it's a SHIELD bug – Dr. Foster had said something about black helicopters in her voicemail, joy. A robot fly on the wall. In which case, the superspies sure got an earful, and Tony's phone is probably about to ring with Fury demanding…you know, Tony doesn't care. Except that then he'll know he needs to track them down and threaten them with…Loki, probably…to get every copy deleted.

All of that was none of anyone else's business.

Also, if it's a robot bug, he wants to catch it and take it apart and steal all the best bits for his own model, because that would be _cool._

"I hate you," Loki says.

Tony sighs. "No, you don't."

There is a long silence.

"You can't ask me to leave Asgard to burn, Tony," is Loki's next attempt. "You can't. It's… It's everything."

"I know."

Tony inspects the gauntlet, joint by joint, weld by weld, every reciprocator and plate, as Loki's hands tighten as if he's trying to hold himself together. He's muttering under his breath, and it takes Tony several repetitions to make it out, even as he pretends he's not eavesdropping.

"I am Loki, Prince of Asgard," his lover is whispering to himself like a mantra, "and I am going home."

Tony is not enough of a jackass to ask _Sure it's where you left it?_ For once, he holds his tongue. He can't force Loki to do anything, and he knows that if he tries, Loki will race off in some unexpected direction just to show him who's boss – it's what Tony would do, after all.

He's finally found someone he can't intimidate, bribe, threaten, sass into incoherent rage, charm into stupidity, sweep off their feet, or even ignore.

"Loki, you're smarter than this," he says instead. "You can't win their game. I'm sorry. I am. But you can't."

"I can," Loki contradicts him immediately, without looking up. "I can, I _can…_ "

Tony manages a rueful, barely amused laugh. "No, you're not listening. You idiot," he says, fondly enough. "Why are you still _playing_ their game?"

* * *

Yesterday the world ended.

Today has to be better, right?

 _Right?_

Today is bright and hot and glaring, completely a day for sunglasses, which is why Tony's wearing them, not because they hide his eyes as he watches Jane Foster's van pull up to the arbitrary edge of the road and settle there like an exhausted beast.

The officers at the checkpoints on I-95 have been calling him for the past hour, letting him know that his guests are here, and double-checking that these mismatched people actually have permission to be here.

He stands a little way up the road in front of yet another shuttered building, hands in his pockets and waiting for them to come to him, feeling like every nerve is strung to a gear that won't stop grinding. So much rides on today, if Tony can play his part, and if the giant blond actual Viking god sizing up Mercury does exactly what Loki expects him to do, and if Loki can pull off the rest of it. Thor doesn't look impressed, but that's fine. Mercury isn't here to be impressive, it's here to be cannon fodder if Loki's plan goes wrong, and Tony spent several hours last night detailing all the ways his magician's plan can go wrong. It's such a bad plan.

If Loki says _trust me_ one more time, Tony's going to punch him again.

And then say _you know I do._

Maybe if the whole place gets knocked down, the Army will get around to rebuilding the bowling alley. Not that Tony's ever been a bowling kind of guy.

He catches his mind wandering and refuses to acknowledge how freaking scared he is. See? Not a hero. A hero would know he was right, and have faith in the inherent justice of the universe to lend strength to his cause, or something. Also, a real hero wouldn't be running a scam like this because he wants to keep sleeping with his (slightly inherently malicious) boyfriend.

But he can't lose his nerve now, because then he loses everything.

Thor is even bigger in person, which is impressive. After two days in that van, he's still in that light Asgardian armor that looks almost like it's for show, too flimsy to serve as any real protection. But then, with how much it takes to get through an Asgardian _hide_ , it's not like they need anything as solid as the Iron Man suit. Blue-dyed leather and silver inlays shine in the desert sun, almost as bright as the painfully Nordic golden hair, as Thor marches into the road like someone who has never, ever imagined he could be hit by a car.

Not that there are any cars. Or any bystanders. A few words to the base commander – officially the town isn't a _base_ anymore, but officially there isn't a tunnel complex underneath the old buildings and the entire place is underpopulated and falling into disrepair – and she'd decided it was a great day for a below-ground training exercise.

Jane Foster ducks around the bulk of the van and catches Thor's arm, saying, "– but I can call him, and – oh! There he is." She looks on edge, as do Dr. Selvig and Darcy as they pile out of the van and walk the few idle paces everyone who's ever been on a road trip takes when they stop, murmuring to each other. But none of them seem much worse for wear. A bit wired, a bit dazed, a bit excited, a bit uncertain.

That's fair. Even Tony doesn't know how this is going to shake out. He's set it up, but from here it's all in Loki's clever hands and his ability to play things just right.

Thor follows her gaze straight to where Tony's standing waiting for them, and comes alert. Tony would be a lot more intimidated by that – for a second or two – if he wasn't predisposed to see Loki's brother as a golden retriever seeing a tennis ball land.

But when Thor disentangles his arm from Jane's, politely enough, and strides forward, it's an uncomfortable but timely reminder that this is no pet dog: this is an armed and armored warrior prince. Thor's pace is firm and confident, balanced without being a swagger, and not at all thrown off by the magic super-mallet carried casually in his left hand. He moves like an athlete at the top of his game, someone who's never faced _no_ without crashing through it a moment later.

Tony stands firm anyway, refusing to be overwhelmed. He can do this. He can shove his red sunglasses up into his hair and smirk at the golden tank bearing down on him, can cock his hips to the perfect nonchalant angle and hoist his best media expression to his face. Thor has _no_ idea who he's dealing with.

"Hi there, big fella," Tony calls out. "Heard a lot about you."

Stopping an arm's length from Tony, Thor looks him over curiously, maybe skeptically. Tony stares back.

Smarter blue eyes than he'd expected, actually. He can't forget that Asgardians are more than they seem at first.

Two is a pretty small sample size, but Tony feels okay with generalizing, this once.

"Your name?" Almost the same accent. Maybe thicker. Noticeably deeper pitch.

"Tony Stark. And you are Thor, Prince of Asgard. Loki's big brother, finally come to check on him." Tony sticks out a hand and doesn't flinch when Thor grips his forearm instead; he was warned, and so he grips back. The muscles beneath that sleeve don't so much as twitch.

"You are my brother's friend," Thor says.

All Tony says is, "Yes." And what a weight that is, to hold all of what that means. Everything that's passed between them, every moment of wonder and deception and anger, every small irritation and every undeserved forgiveness, every joke and every secret, every drop of blood shed and every bruise, every kiss and gasp, every false word and painfully true one.

But Tony's going to bear it, and he'll break before he sets that down or puts it aside.

"Where is he?"

Thor releases his hand, and Tony uses that newfound freedom to shrug expressively. Watching from the sidelines, or at least the verge, because they're smarter than to stand in the middle of the road, Mystery Inc. can probably tell he's overacting, but Thor probably can't. "Damned if I know. Around." He grins a media grin, a cocky bastard grin. " _You_ should know how hard it is to spot Loki when he doesn't want to be seen."

Looking around anyway, right over Tony's head, which he's going to _hate_ , Thor says, "I do indeed." There's a grim note in his voice when he adds, "He cannot hide forever."

 _Oh, for –_ "He's not going to," Tony retorts, more sharply than he'd meant to, offended on Loki's behalf, and Thor's eyes snap back to him. Well, bring it on. "Or you wouldn't be here." He nods at Mystery Inc. "Does sending these guys to find you seem like a great hiding plan to you?"

Less than five minutes, and Thor's already irritating him; how did Loki _stand_ this guy?

He moves on; this isn't his fight – he promised. "Right. So, this might be…you'd probably call it a battlefield camp…but you're still guests here." He includes Mystery Inc. in this, looking away from Thor and at them. "My guests, actually. How about we get out of the sun? I've arranged for quarters for you – you all, of course."

It's not a great feeling, turning his back on Thor, but Tony moves away and nods to Dr. Foster and her little crew. "You are all amazing, by the way, and thank you." If he tries to kiss Jane's hand, she'll punch him; he has no idea how Loki gets away with it. He settles for clapping Darcy on one shoulder, lightly and platonically, since of the three of them, she looks least likely to jump out of her shoes. "Anything I can do for you, ask me. It's yours. Name your favor."

He's promised one already, after all, and he breezes on. "Dr. Foster, I'll get you set up with your lab here when I get a moment. It's giving the bridge of the _Enterprise_ scanner envy, so I think you're set, but if not, you've certainly got the parts. You decide to redesign anything, lemme know, because that sounds like fun."

"Thanks," she says almost absently, looking past him and at Thor. Tony, from long, extensive, and totally enjoyable experience, doubts her attention is entirely scientific.

If Tony were a different sort of person, he'd throw an arm around her shoulders and say, _Asgardians, right? So pretty, so goddamn impossibly frustrating._ But he's not, which is probably for the best.

"Look," he says, turning back to Thor. "Loki will come to you in his own time. He's not running. He'll find you. In the meantime, don't open any locked doors. I know you can probably pull the handle straight through the door, but don't. There's an underground, stay out of it; there are only so many favors I can ask of the army now that I'm not providing every weapon in their arsenal. But we –" and Tony gestures to himself and the three humans at his back, as if they were a group all along, "– we're out of this, okay?"

"I understand," Thor nods agreement.

Three fewer people who might not be collateral damage. Okay. Tony's just got to keep adding to that list.

And Loki just has to keep to his end of this stupid, stupid plan.

* * *

The rec center has seen better days. A lobby branches out into two parallel corridors, wrapping in a tight U around the spacious gym floor. There are dance studios – mirrors are broken and barres are missing – and cutesy classrooms for small kids on the outer perimeter. But they're dusty and abandoned, and the air conditioning needed replacing about a decade ago, by Tony's rough assessment. It _works_ , which saves the gym from being an oven, but even the moving air smells stale.

Those are basketball lines partially obscured by some old stationary workout equipment and floor mats, judging by the retractable hoops not quite winched up to the high ceiling. They haven't moved in a while – two of them have bird nests in them, and the nets have rotted or been torn away. Piles of folding tables block off a stack of chipboard carnival booths. Two absurdly thick floor mats no doubt hide a forensic lab's worth of tiny bits of human and entire new species of dust mites, but folded up against the back wall, they make an okay couch.

Any kiddie gymnastic classes in here were a long time ago, but Tony could swear he can still taste the chalk dust in the air. Fortunately, he only caught one whiff of prekindergarten incontinence, and he might have been imagining it. On the sections of the wall not protected by disintegrating padding, the cartoony jungle paintings, heavy on climbing, swinging, jumping monkeys, have faded patchily.

Not at all Tony's sort of place, and he wishes for the sea breeze blowing through the Malibu house. And maybe a mimosa. Some designing to do. And Loki leaning against his back, alternately reading aloud passages he likes and commenting scathingly on the intelligence of the characters, whether fictional or historical.

And that there wasn't a hammer-wielding space Viking prince standing in the double doorway. Fortunately, the doors between lobby and gym had been knocked off their hinges already.

"I come seeking you," Thor declares, which Tony privately judges as a little redundant. He doesn't think Thor's here to use the elliptical machine. "Why have you chosen this place for your rest? There is no one here."

"Kind of the point." Tony double-saves his progress – no, he's not playing a mindless puzzle game because he's too nervous to work, why would anyone think that? – and slides down from the quite thick mats. "Staying out of the way, remember? Found Loki yet?"

Thor scowls and doesn't answer, not that he needs to. Instead, he challenges, "What manner of man calls my brother friend?"

Tony's abruptly glad he's already on his feet, because it means he can brace them like he's ready to throw a punch and stare back stubbornly as Thor strides towards him. "What, you don't think he can have friends?"

To his surprise, Thor chuckles. That's the only word for it. "Not at all," he says, almost effusively, stopping a reasonable distance away. Enough so Tony doesn't feel like he's going to put a crick in his neck looking up, at least; far enough that he'd at least see the attack coming. Couldn't dodge it, not if Thor's half as fast as his brother, but he'd have time for a curse. "I ask merely out of curiosity, and in gratitude."

Which…is not what Tony was expecting. "Sorry, what?"

Thor beams at him, and Tony starts to understand why Asgard's people might prefer Thor over Loki as their future king. Not because Thor's going to be better at it, but because he's so damn _charming_.

Loki's eye-catching, and he's fascinating; fierce and dangerous, but Tony will be the first to admit that his lover is _not_ the easiest person to get along with. He's sharp-tongued as much as silver-, and he's arrogant in a standoffish way, untouchable; if Tony happened to hear him launching into the "Cower, brief mortals," speech at some point, he wouldn't be at all surprised.

 _Massively_ entertained, but not surprised.

But there's a great divide between _captivating_ and _charming_ , and the line might as well have been drawn for Loki and Thor.

Practically bleeding charisma, radiating cheerful goodwill and total lack of threat, Thor smiles broadly and says, "I know it must have grieved Loki greatly to be set aside and left on this world, all alone. If you have been his companion and cared for him, you have Asgard's thanks, and mine."

Tony finds himself at a loss for words. This never used to happen before he got involved with people who said _magic_ like they meant it and happened to be from another planet. But Thor's talking like everything is fine. Could he maybe not understand how _much_ Loki resents him, how much bitterness infuses every story his brother has ever entrusted Tony with?

Also, the _patronizing_ – Tony wants to give Loki everything and get to watch while he figures it out, takes it apart, and witches it into something new and unimaginable, but not because he thinks the magician needs to be _cared_ for.

Instead, he says, "That…never crossed my mind. I like him for who he is without all that. I didn't even know who he really was, for years. Boy, was I mad when I found out." He manages a rueful chuckle of his own. "Not even that he'd tricked me, once I calmed down. But because he'd been keeping something so incredible a secret, and I could have been in on it all along."

Thor laughs like Tony's done a clever trick. "Ha! Had I doubts it was my brother who guided you here, or who brought me here to meet with him, that alone would dismiss them! Loki treasures his secrets, does he not?"

"Yeah," is the only thing Tony can say. It's very true.

"But I have missed his quick tongue, and his cunning at my side in battle of late. There are many battles to win!" Thor confides, despite how far his voice carries. Tony can't imagine him whispering as Thor rolls on, "Our jests are poorer for lack of his mischief, and –"

He stops, and Tony's heart thuds to fill the gap. Thor may not know his brother's secrets, but he sure as hell knows Loki's style.

"Ah," he says finally, knowingly. He steps back, and scans the room. "Hello, Loki."

Just a moment's pause, just for effect – _you diva_ , Tony thinks – and Loki fades into view, right where he's been all along, waiting. He's the third point of an equilateral triangle, equidistant from his brother and his lover, and Tony takes that in and appreciates it. He's not overtly allying himself with Tony, because Thor would see that as an alliance _against._

 _Right then,_ Tony thinks, as Thor grins in triumph and amusement and perhaps a bit of resigned chagrin at being entrapped, and as Loki stares back in perfect, fearless, unchallengeable arrogance –

 _Showtime._

* * *

 _To be continued._

 **Author's Note:** And what's a show without music? Want to help me assemble a "Mirage" soundtrack? Send me music – any genre, any style, any age – that might be associated with any scene, theme, setting, or character, and I'll put together a list! Three chapters left…


	17. Lost in America

ON WITH THE SHOW!

* * *

 **Chapter Seventeen: Lost in America**

"– _and you'll never forgive me?" he says, half-teasing._

" _And will have an abundance of time to begrudge you it," Loki answers, without even a shade of amusement. "Do not believe that I would stay by your side, should that occur."_

 _That kills the joke stone dead, as Tony hears the threat there. Words choke in his throat, and horror and dread suffocate him._

 _He hadn't really been considering sabotage. He wouldn't really engineer things so that Loki had to stay with him. He wants to keep what they have, but not like_ that, _not with Loki trapped. He'd be no better than the bastards who sent his magician here in the first place, who cut him off from the home he longs for despite everything._

 _Loki looks over at him, direct and very serious. "Do you still wish to remain by my side, knowing what you hazard? Knowing that, if it is_ you _who spoils all I mean to do tomorrow, then we are_ over _, you and I?"_

 _Tony's sitting on the floor with a wall at his back, but he feels like there's an edge yawning at his feet as vertigo swims through his skull. Here they are again, just like that heady, silly night in a Las Vegas construction zone. They've come too far to back down, chasing each other higher and higher, and now they stand on the edge, in the darkness, with a narrow road to walk and a long, long fall beneath._

 _It's not a game anymore. Maybe it was never a game. But the hand once stretched out to him in too-casual invitation is held tight in his, and Tony takes a deep breath and holds on tighter._

" _Yes." And even harder to say, but he manages it, committing himself:_

" _Tell me what to do."_

 _In return, he gets a very tiny smile. "Keep quiet," Loki directs. "I_ think _you can do it, though I've never witnessed such myself –"_

* * *

There might as well be nothing else in the world, outside the alien princes staring at each other across a few short meters of battered, grimy gymnasium floor. There's a faint taste of mugginess in the air, unaffected by the laboring air conditioner. Somewhere in Tony's peripheral vision, there are workout machines and disassembled uneven bars and stacks of folding chairs, somehow incongruous next to the _actual aliens_ , like floor mats are the weird thing here. None of that exists. Tony himself might not exist, and he locks his hands behind his back in a reminder, tablet set aside, forcing himself to stay still and watch.

Years and blood and lies and schemes and magic; anger and resentment and grief and lust and friendship and homesickness bitter as poison; wine and armor and fire and desert and spaceships and magic portals and the arc reactor –

And here they stand.

"There you are at last, brother!" Thor declares, like it's all his achievement, like he'd bled and fought and wept for this reunion. Tony might as well be invisible, for all the attention Thor is paying him, and he's already at war with himself as he stays quiet and lets Thor and Loki confront each other. He knows he has to stay out of the way, that this isn't his fight. But.

"I should have known you would make me search for you after all. Hah, perhaps I too should have merely waited, and thus we'd face off across the desert until the darkness came!" It's not funny, and even Thor doesn't laugh. Instead, he lets his voice – and the dust from the rafters – settle and says, "I am pleased to find you unharmed, although I knew you were, to be making trouble enough to draw Father's eye."

Loki only gazes back at him as the magician paces out a long, slow long arc, but otherwise doesn't react, drawing out the silence.

"You look well, though it is strange to see you dressed in their garb," Thor ventures, smile flickering uncertainly.

Tony really likes the way Loki looks in that black and green semiformal ensemble he's wearing today, which he'd pulled fresh and without a single crease from that bottomless bag. _Magic_. Totally cheating. Tony had thrown a sock at him and missed. Somehow, he's not surprised when the outfit vanishes beneath a ripple of golden light in response to Thor's comment. Between one of Loki's steps and the next, it solidifies into his Asgardian armor. Not a challenge yet, but almost, and the two princes watch each other warily.

"Did you expect to find me otherwise?" Loki asks finally, disdainful and mocking. "Broken and desperate? Helpless and begging, perhaps?"

"No, of course not. Had you been sent elsewhere, perhaps so, but what danger is there here for such as we?" Thor turns slightly to follow Loki as he moves almost idly about the room, turning his back on Tony like the engineer is just another folding chair.

But he's fought for the right to stay, to be here for this, so here he'll be. Tony needs to see how this goes down, needs to be here to have Loki's back. Loki doesn't needhim for this, he knows, but his friend and lover wants him here, and that's even better.

Really, could he have missed the chance to _watch?_ To get to see Loki and Thor like something out of a dream, unearthly and too real in this dilapidated, discarded building, fencing back and forth while between them, _everything_ tumbles like a pair of dice thrown to rattle across the table?

Plus, Tony loveswatching Loki move when he's ready for a fight, wary and alert. Not a foot wrong, not the slightest flicker of hesitation, not a moment of imbalance between steps; he prowls with the easy poise of a big cat.

Sure. He can focus on that. He can savor the pretty picture the brothers make and not think about how much depends on this.

Loki says, very softly, "Ignorance, Thor." A tiny smile, amused and nasty, tweaks at the corner of his mouth. "Confusion kills, or have you forgotten Rechanthe Gap?"

"I – Loki! That was centuries past, and I was a child, eager for the battle! And we won!" Thor splutters like any boy jeered at by a sibling.

Silent because he promised to be, Tony bites down on everything he wants to ask. That's not the deal. He can't ask for context. He has to stand on his own. Loki can't help him, can't draw attention to him, can't even acknowledge that Tony might be worthy of standing alongside them.

He's here as a witness, able only to stand back and be present. Not enough to get in Thor's face, but enough so that Loki has him there in the corner of his eye, as the magician prowls around the room.

Tony can be here, but that's all he can do. This is not his fight, and he _must_ stay out of it, or all is lost.

"I would say that the rain won, drowning all our wills to battle, save perhaps yours." Loki raises a slim hand, placating, as if he wasn't the one who'd riled Thor up in the first place. "But let us say it was the lightning you called, scattering half the cliff face with a mighty blow."

Tony wonders if he's the only one who can hear the bristling sarcasm in the faint praise, or the implied criticism – had younger Thor messed up, missed his shot? – and the fine hairs on the back of his neck stand on end with anticipatory fear. It would be so, so easy for everything to go wrong, for Loki to bait his warrior brother a little too far, or for Thor to say something callous and idiotic and set off his brother's snap-quick temper.

He can certainly hear his own heartbeat, too loud in his ears.

But maybe Thor's just used to the sarcasm, because he replies at once even as questions spill through Tony's head, "Confusion killed the _enemy_ at Rechanthe, and it is your weapon as much and more than mine, is it not? I knew you could turn it to your advantage here."

"Such confidence," Loki murmurs, still in motion, eyes fixed on Thor. "Shall I thank you for it?"

Thor doesn't take the bait. "Loki, what are you playing at? Why have you brought me here? Is this where you have made your home?"

"This place?" The surprised disdain in Loki's voice seems genuine, and he looks around as if he'd never seen the abandoned rec center before, or Mercury's sunbaked desolation outside. "Hardly. But we could not have met there, nor anywhere Midgard's people gather. This world does not know us, Thor. They would not only fear us, but _hate_ us, and strike against us, should they see us quarrel – and you have come to chide me at best and punish me at worst, do not deny that Mjolnir is ready in your hand! Of all people, do not lie to _me_. This is a space, nothing more, to battle or to speak at leisure, for we cannot stride and brawl across their land as we would upon Asgard."

His golden Viking of a brother looks at him without any shade of comprehension. "Why not?"

The arrogance sets Tony's teeth on edge. He and the rest of Earth's people might as well not be here, and at least Tony has an idea of what he's involved with. He tries to imagine Thor set loose to wander Earth, with its traffic signals and ATMs and baby strollers and complete lack of preparedness for space Vikings, and knows it wouldn't have been long before Thor and that hammer killed someone just for speaking to him wrong.

Clearly it runs in the family, but Loki's is a different kind of arrogance altogether. From experience, Tony knows Loki judges people as unworthy of him; he doesn't care what they think of him, and so he doesn't care about them.

Can Thor really be so confident that he'll be fine no matter what he does? _Loki_ sure doesn't believe that, beneath the admittedly convincing façade…

Loki sighs, resignation and patience, a tiny bit patronizing, and waves the question away. "No matter. What brings you to Midgard at last, Thor? Have you nothing of greater interest to do than visit me in my exile?"

The scowl actually _looks_ like a storm cloud. "You know why I am here," Thor rumbles, and the hand holding that giant warhammer shifts. Not brandishing it, but that's a frightening tell.

"Do I?" Loki counters, eyes wide and face open, the very picture of innocence. He even comes to a stop from his endless pacing as he weaves through the discarded exercise equipment, placing one hand on the handlebar of a stationary bike as if needing to prop himself up in surprise.

"Loki, do not play games with me!" It's not quite a shout, but it's a very loud snap. "You defied Father."

Stepping out into an open section of floor, precisely between two basketball lines as if he'd placed himself there deliberately, Loki folds his arms across his chest and glares back. "And was punished for it. And here I stand." He spreads one hand out again in an ironic gesture; _look at all the planet I'm stuck in time-out on._

Everyone in the room knows Thor wasn't talking about whatever it was sent Loki to Earth in the first place, but Tony's desperately curious all over again. He's been so good about that, unbelievably so. He wants to know, but he's never asked.

Because he's not stupid, that's why. He knows how proud Loki is, and Tony's never found a good time to take the risk of asking him about something that's doubtless a painful, embarrassing memory. Of all the things they could have fought about – of all the things they _have_ – that piece of Loki's past never seemed like the priority.

He's here. Tony doesn't care _why._

"What were you thinking, trying to return to Asgard unbidden? You were sent here by Father's command, and here you will stay, until he declares otherwise," Thor growls, glaring. "And you do yourself no kindness by testing him!"

"For no more than –" Loki cries out, abruptly outraged: yep, that's a sore spot. He interrupts himself with a sharp snap of a gesture, as if too angry to speak, and everything about him screams _wounded_. He turns away from Thor, and almost coincidentally away from Tony as well where he stands against the folded mats, unnoticed, choking on his promise. Angry green eyes vanish beneath a curtain of long hair, the grimace beneath them visible just a moment longer.

Tony probably would have given Loki a moment to calm down.

Thor doesn't.

"Will you tell me what transpired?" he jumps in, eagerly. "Father will not speak of you –"

Oh, _that_ flinch is real, and deep; Loki hides it well, but not well enough. Tony can practically taste his entire childhood in the back of his throat, and hurts with his lover. _Dad, dad, listen – Dad, can you – Dad, wait up – Dad, are you going to – dammit, listen to me!_ And he might as well have been beating his fists against a stone, one that always had better things to do than offer the couple of words that had been all he'd been asking for –

But Thor rolls on. "– and Mother will not say."

"How is Mother?" Loki tries to change the subject, far too obviously.

"She is well," Thor says briefly, and brings the subject sharply back down on his brother. "She misses you. What prank was so irresistible, brother, to grieve her so?!"

Loki turns on him with " _Prank?_ " snapped out as sharply as a whip. "It was _not my fault!_ I was trapped, and threatened, and I did the best I could! I did what I am _for!_ And –"

He cuts himself off so abruptly Tony can hear his teeth click together. "And you will have me tell it all again," he says after a moment's pause. He draws in a breath, audibly struggling with his temper. "Very well, then –"

Somehow back at the third point in that perfect triangle, facing both the brother confronting him and the friend and lover supporting him – Tony meets his eyes for a second, trying to send the trust he's been asked for and all his hopes that Loki can pull this off, without a single spoken word – the magician raises his hands and claps them together.

The sound echoes, and then Loki snaps his hands out again, as if flicking water from his fingers towards them, and the half-rotted gymnasium vanishes under a wash of color and light and magic.

* * *

 _Damn,_ but Tony loves the way Loki tells stories. Four years and a lifetime ago, he went looking for holograms because he was bored and there was nothing _new_ under the sun, on a vague impression of technology indistinguishable from magic.

And now he's apparently a superhero, with a glowing power source that drives the best machine he's ever built embedded in his chest, and he stands at the side of a man – a prince from beneath alien stars – who can snap his fingers and turn this grungy gym into a primeval forest, because he has _actual magic_ in those hands and behind those eyes.

How's he ever meant to get over that?

"Is Alfheim burning, now?" Loki asks idly, almost wistfully, as leaves rustle; it's a quiet noise, but it's a _loud_ sort of silence, as if the entire world were alive and waiting, listening breathlessly. In the distance, a high wall rears, trailing strips of color; Tony can distantly hear voices calling out to each other.

The air is still thick and heavy and indoor-old, but otherwise, they might as well have been beamed down into a Disney forest. Any moment now, a tiny girl in a red cape will come skipping along, see the alien warriors bristling at each other, and run for her cutesy little life.

"Aye," Thor growls. "So it _was_ you, then, who set it ablaze?"

Loki shrugs one-handed, too casual. "Perhaps I struck a spark, but Alfheim has smoldered for centuries. Every keep a kingdom, every castle a nation, every cousin a would-be lord, not a one able to agree on more than that _he_ is superior to the others and the natural leader of the lot."

 _Thanks, Loki_ , Tony thinks, half-hidden among the giant trees; he doubts that bit of context was for Thor's benefit.

"What of it?" Thor challenges. "The feuds of the elves were their own, until you took a hand."

His brother glares at him. "I was sent to hunt among them, to watch and learn when Father's eye and his ravens were elsewhere, and so I have told you my tale half already." He raises a hand and points to a tree branch.

Some kind of hawk materializes there. It's not large, and as it ruffles its wings and stares at the high-walled castle visible above the trees, shadows and sunlight make the rippling, broken pattern of brown-spotted wings over the white body seem like camouflage.

On the ground beneath it, Loki beckons, and the bird takes flight as if he'd lifted it upwards. "Father sent me to Alfheim to listen, and to bring home true reports of the ever-shifting factions." Above, the falcon soars in idle circles, and Loki scowls.

"And thus I spent my days spying on elves, perching on stables until misaimed weather spells sought to blow my feathers from me, listening to kitchen gossip while mewling for scraps, collecting tales of grudges that should have filled a century, and all wiped away in a blink every time some sighing maid tired of her lover and knifed him in his sleep. Asgard is _peaceful_ , for all our battles, next to Alfheim's petty scheming! Not a secret can they keep beyond month's end, not an insult can they bear without declaring feud."

His still-raised hand guides the falcon through its flight, as he goes on, "And so I traveled, playing no part and thinking myself unnoticed, until –"

Something large and golden-brown hurtles from the sky, colliding with the dappled falcon, and they crash to the ground together, not far from Tony's feet. Fallen leaves fly again, briefly, and snapped twigs rain down around him; Tony _knows_ Loki's illusions don't have substance and that he's not going to be hit, but he still jumps, flinching like he's going to get a caterpillar down his back.

Tony sees the momentary puzzlement as Thor registers that he's still here, and it almost _hurts_ to drop his eyes and look away, playing at harmlessness and keeping silent. Next time – _please, let there be a next time_ – maybe he could promise something easier, like multivariate calculus while drunk and with a hand, preferably Loki's, down his pants.

 _Don't notice me, Prince Valiant, I'm not important, I'm not in your way…_

"– _that_ struck me from the sky," Loki resumes his narration, as the dappled falcon writhes in the heavy claws of a massive golden eagle. Alien letters, etched into the talons, glow brighter and brighter the more Loki the hawk tries to escape, and finally he goes still.

With a snap of Loki's fingers, the scene changes, from forest to walled-in courtyard. Grey stone, piled skyscraper-high, blocks out both suns, but entirely silly-looking multicolored lanterns hang from the interior, and fires burn in braziers like the one Tony saw in Loki's hidden room back in the Mirage.

That seems a very long time ago, and very far away. While it's _here_ they've been working towards, lately, Tony wishes they were still in Vegas, drowsing together in the humid air and rucked-up covers of flushed and easy, well-earned exhaustion.

But this is Loki's stage, and Loki's story, all his show. In the shadow of an alien castle, willowy-looking horses – the razor-sharp hooves cutting divots into the earth don't fit – prance in place, bound to each other and to metal poles embedded in the walls.

 _That is one butt-ugly building,_ Tony can't even say. The fortress in the center of it all is possibly the ugliest piece of architecture Tony's ever seen. It looks like someone took half a dozen fantasy castles, cut them up into chunks, and glued them together – while blindfolded. And didn't bother to mop up the glue. The edges don't line up, colors and materials ram into each other, and some of those rooms were never meant to be open to the air. The tip of a tower sags in on itself like it's melting in the bits of sun that have managed to reach it.

Some combination of a junkyard Rottweiler, a sabretooth tiger, and an industrial accident – and it's the size of an elephant – shows its mangled-looking face through a tunnel that must be the front gate. The creature is promptly sent packing by an indistinct humanoid form, one of many filling in the background of the scene. Not attacked like it's an intruder, but shooed away like a guard dog neglecting its patrol.

A moment later, the golden eagle soars over the walls and dives straight into a giant Hula-Hoop laid out flat in the dirt. The second it passes the perimeter, it shrieks and writhes, releasing the dappled hawk, which ripples and explodes outward into a falling, familiar shape. But when the eagle tries to veer away, it hits a shimmering silver barrier and recoils.

Ever seen a bird trapped in a revolving door? Tony has. And that one couldn't have looked a Great Dane in the eye, and didn't have razor claws.

Even with his arms raised to protect his face, it's a very familiar man crouched in the dirt below it. Shadow-Loki is a perfect duplicate of the one telling the story, armor, surcoat, and all. _Guess he really does wear it all the time back home_ , Tony thinks, irrelevantly. Feathers float down around him, and he tries to twist away, but the same barrier traps him within the ring.

"A cancel-spell," Loki ostensibly tells his brother, but it's Tony who nods. He doesn't miss the flicker of a glance Loki aims at him, which is…

Actually, it does help, just knowing Loki's still paying attention to him, that this shadow-play is as much for him as for Thor. He's promised to be a silent witness, but Loki hasn't forgotten that he's there.

"It undid the last magic cast on both of us. It took my gyrfalcon form from me. But the eagle – Thiassi had been riding it in spirit, its waking mind trapped within and helpless to disobey, and it was angry."

Most of the shapes within the courtyard are vague and meaningless, no more than mismatched, shadowy stand-ins, some thick-set and bulky, some slender, some not even bipedal. But the man standing just outside the edge of the hoop, hands raised as if placed flat against the barrier, but not touching it, is vivid and clear. Loki's cast him in sharp and angry focus as he bares jagged teeth in a chuckle, watching the involuntary cage match.

The scene freezes, blurs, resets with shadow-Loki standing alone within the ring. His face and hands are bleeding from claw marks, and his hair is tangled like the eagle might have grabbed hold of it; his armor is scratched and torn, and the knife in his hand is bloody. And yet he holds his head high, despite the golden feathers caught in his hair, and faces the…that does not look like what Tony thinks of when someone says _elf._ Tolkien would have kicked this guy out of Middle-Earth in a heartbeat, although it'd take a lot of kicking to move someone that big and armed. Everything about him is a bit oversized, arms and legs out of proportion and nose and mouth slightly protruding, like a muzzle. His skin is light grey, almost marbled, and his metallic gold hair has been braided into something eye-wateringly complex.

"Thiassi," Loki says, bitterness and hate obvious. "Alfheim is overfull of petty warlords, conceited snobs, and feuding hill clans, but he – oh, he had ambitions beyond raiding his neighbors' herds and daughters. He plotted in earnest to make himself King of all Alfheim, and he desired his new kingdom to supplant Asgard, one day."

"Impossible. Let them gather up their soldiers and launch them at our gates in proper battle, and I will destroy them as I did before! The light elves have only ever been an annoyance," Thor says dismissively.

"Because they have never been united! Thiassi would have turned Alfheim's spite outwards, to prey on all they could and grow thus, under his command."

Thor scowls, striding right through Loki's carefully crafted illusions to glare at the giant, sneering man. "And you struck him down?"

Tony's watching Loki, so he sees the snarl cross his lover's face. Whether it's for the memory, or for Thor blundering through his work, he genuinely can't tell. "Father commanded that I do nothing. Watch, and report. But Thiassi knew me. I traveled on, and he hunted me down. He _hunted_ me, Thor!"

It's a yowl, a scream of protest barely bitten back; it's the sound of Loki losing his temper in outrage. _Careful, careful, Loki_ , Tony can't say. _Easy now…_

But then he never could. Loki would have rolled his eyes and ignored Tony on his best day, had he said anything so patronizing. This is not his fight, and he has to shut up. He promised.

Tony has to keep telling himself that.

"You survived, plain to see," Thor points out unnecessarily. "What did he want of you, if not to slay you?"

Somehow Loki doesn't sound happy about it when he answers, "Oh, Thiassi had plans for me that required my life. But he promised me that should I defy him, I would never escape the restraints laid out around me, waiting only his word to snap tight. He swore that he'd bind me and confine me and call all his allies to him, and all his enemies too, and we'd see which of them would be most eager to pledge themselves and all their treasure to him for a chance to end me. A captive, and an Aesir prince, and a _spy_ , at that. They would have killed me slowly, and poorly, and I did not savor the prospect."

In the illusory courtyard, Thiassi and shadow-Loki speak together, the giant grinning and pointing, eyes narrowing in threat and then hands opening in a deceptively generous gesture.

"Or, he proposed, I could buy my life back from him. He asked a talisman from Asgard's treasure vaults as a prince's ransom, and had he asked for gold or gems I would have promised freely and watched from the battlements as his rivals sought to take them from him in battle or through treachery."

Shadow-Loki recoils, stepping back as far as he can but avoiding the invisible perimeter, and Thiassi follows him even as the illusion shakes his head.

"Instead he demanded magic. Its name would mean nothing to you, brother, but I knew it."

"We have keepers and guardians, Loki, and I do not see how you can so enjoy losing yourself in the darkest and most neglected corners of our vaults, to emerge with spiders in your hair and coughing from the dust –"

"Well," Loki says acerbically, "it appears my enjoyment was to know the nature of my ransom, and that I could not let him take it. It would have made his warriors near-invincible, beyond even the Aesir gift for endurance, letting them rise from their wounds as if new to the battlefield, again and again. With tireless soldiers, he would have made an end of Alfheim's war against Alfheim, and then turned them to richer targets."

Standing on the other side of Thiassi's magic Hula Hoop, Thor looks like he's bitten into a hot dog that's been in the freezer for three years. "You told him no."

"Oh, I told him yes."

"You _what?"_ the blond warrior roars, hefting Mjolnir as if ready to throw. "You stole – you took treasures from our vaults – you gave him –"

Loki only rolls his eyes; Tony's standing slightly behind him, off to one side, but he knows that gesture, because Loki exaggerates it, rolling his head on his neck like he's stiff and exhausted from trying to explain simple things.

"Surely you know me better than that," Loki scolds, sarcastic and mock-disappointed. "As if I would have let something like _that_ command me! I promised to bring him his bauble. I promised very carefully, before he thought to lay a compulsion I could not break upon me, helpless as I was within his trap! Enough, surely, that he _hurt_ me first – and that I will not show you – to teach me what he and his allies would do to me should I fail?"

Through the remembered anger, he smirks and snaps his fingers, and the scene shifts again. "I promised _only_ to bring them. I said nothing of the state they would be in, once in his hands."

Now the three of them are outside the castle's walls, and the light has changed to suggest a different day. The gate is thrown wide to show the courtyard now full of shadowy figures, arrayed in rows and columns like an army. Thiassi stands waiting in the center of the gateway, guarded by three of the elephant-sized Rottweilers from Hell.

Tony can't _hear_ those monsters growling as shadow-Loki emerges from the trees, the hand pressed against his breastbone glowing from the small pouch he's cradling, but he can imagine them.

"I promised him his treasures. I handed them to him as commanded. I warned him not to lay hands on them himself, and that their effect on a healthy warrior would be…unspeakably powerful. And I demanded the catch-spell he'd laid on me broken, to release me from my promise, and so he did."

The illusory figures play out the scene Loki describes, and with the shimmering pouch in his grasp, Thiassi laughs and waves shadow-Loki away. He turns back to his army, and so he misses – even if Thor and Tony do not – the tiny, satisfied smirk on his former captive's face as shadow-Loki backs away far too nonchalantly.

And sure enough, even as Thiassi strides through that wide-open gate, he reaches into the pouch and pulls out –

Well, _what_ doesn't matter, because it immediately explodes.

The red-gold inferno roars through the tunnel, a ready-made cannon barrel, and as Tony jerks away instinctively, he sees shadow-Loki with one hand raised, and an energy field appears to channel the full force of the blast into the faces of the waiting army.

But explosions are funny creatures, and this one fights him; shadow-Loki wavers, and enough of the blast escapes his control to terrify the Hellweilers. As their master's castle burns and the wall begins to crumble, they leap and recoil and turn to flee –

And freeze. Everything freezes, fire and falling stone and Hellweilers; the explosion is caught like a high-speed camera shot, revealed as a cross-section of hellfire billowing out into a sideways mushroom cloud, the edge of it visible over the walls. One of the Hellweilers cringes to the ground, the second is caught halfway through a leap, twisted away and one paw up like it's waiting for a high-five. The third is already into the trees, tail tucked. Shadow-Loki is frozen too, fire gleaming in his spiteful eyes and casting his face into sharper angles beneath the darkness of the cloud of smoke overhead.

"What was I to do, Thor?" Loki spits at his brother. "What else? What differently? That his death cast all Alfheim into a frenzy, scrabbling for the power he'd held – _that_ is no fault of mine!"

Thor stands between the burning keep and the four illusory figures escaping from it, and frowns at the fire, thinking.

Personally, Tony really appreciates the pause, because he's been having nightmares about fire just like that since he got out of Afghanistan, which Loki should know – Tony's woken him up with them enough times.

But it's okay. It's safe. This isn't real, he reminds himself sternly. It's just – hahahaha, _just_ – light manipulated. It can't touch him. Loki's illusions can't hurt him, or anyone, they can only deceive and frighten. Tony can put a hand straight through them, and he has, just like last night.

He tries to set that aside, and goes straight into the shock of Loki's story finally told, and _what_ a story! That could have been him – hell, that _was_ him! Caught by an enemy, commanded to help them, escaping through deception, and burning them to punish them.

 _God_ , they're really no different –

A tingle of suspicion runs through the back of his brain, though. Is it too close? Is it too perfect? They really only have Loki's word for what happened back then. It's all his show.

But why would he make up _this_ story? He doesn't need to win Tony's sympathy, and Thor doesn't have a clue what Tony went through, unless Mystery Inc. have been a lot more talkative than he thinks.

"But of course," Loki says bitterly, "all anyone else might have seen is that I ran off and assassinated one of their little lords for nothing more than spite, or believed that I was trading away magic just to make trouble, when I was merely justice done!" He bares his teeth in a furious parody of the Real Smile still slicing through the face of his shadow-self, forgotten beyond Thor just as the Hellweilers have been. "And Father condemned me out of hand –"

"I have heard you speak in your own defense, Loki," Thor interrupts, and Loki audibly chokes on his next words as his brother turns to him, a smirk on his face for the warlord's fiery fate, but very little sympathy there with it. "And I know you have talked your way out of trouble you were _rightly_ in."

"Oh, so that is cause to condemn me? Because I might have done something he misliked, at some point?" he demands, and spits out a disgusted breath, almost a _tch_. "Had _you_ bothered to speak in my defense, _brother_ , perhaps I might have ended staked out for Jotuns to hunt, rather than merely banished." Tony can hear that quick temper coming to a boil, and he's helpless to step in and stop it, or even distract him – he _promised_ – as Loki sneers at Thor. "That I should be _grateful_ for your silence –!"

"Had I _bothered –_?" Thor protests, and Loki paces towards him accusingly.

"Did you?" he hisses.

The two of them might as well be illusions put on pause, the way Thor freezes and Loki goes still in imitation, although Thor's is the stillness of something caught, and Loki's the cat ready to pounce.

"Did you say a single word in my defense?" Loki asks, low and cutting. "Did you ever suggest to Father that perhaps I should be given a moment to explain myself?"

Thor recovers badly. "I had no chance to –" he bluffs.

Loki doesn't let him get away with it, and while Tony can't see his eyes, he can see the twisted delight on the face of his past self, seeing his trap being sprung.

 _Careful,_ Tony thinks helplessly; something inside has been screaming it all along. _Keep your temper, Loki, I know I did everything I could to break that control, but you need it now…_

But he promised silence, and Loki can't hear him, and may not even know Tony's still there as he attacks. "Not a word, did you? Tell me you came after me, then. Tell me you tried. Tell me you flew at once to Heimdall and ordered him to let you pass. Tell me only Father's threats kept you away when _I needed you!_ "

Thor backs up a step, closer to that rearing Hellweiler, but stops before he blunders into it. Illusion or not, and he must know how Loki's illusions work, it's hard to pretend like something that big isn't there.

"You didn't even try!" Loki damns him, fists clenched. "You assumed I was to blame, that whatever I'd done, I deserved everything – _anything!_ – that happened to me."

Thor stares at his brother in confusion and horror, anger of his own beginning to show on his face in the stationary firelight.

But beyond him, Tony sees movement. That Hellweiler has been reared onto its hind legs, one paw high, eyes fixed on the burning castle, but now, very, very slowly, its head begins to move. It turns to focus on Thor like some great golem coming to life, and it can't be a trick of the light, because the fire isn't moving…

"Brother _dear_ ," Loki mocks him, visibly losing his temper. There's a terrible note in his voice, a nasty, _mean_ sense of humor with no laughter in it at all, and the sound of it draws Tony's nerves a tiny fraction closer to agony.

He can't interfere; he can't, _he mustn't –_

"Such faith you have in me," Loki sneers. "How nice to know you always have my _back_!"

And the Hellweiler's paw comes swatting down in a swift and powerful strike that knocks Thor and his warhammer straight into the far wall.

* * *

" _Do you trust me?" Loki asks._

" _Yes. You keep saying not to, but I do."_

" _Enough to do as I command?"_

" _I said I would."_

" _Enough to leave me, if that is the command I give you?"_

" _What? Wait, no, Loki, I –"_

" _Can you run, trusting that, should I ask it of you, it is because I cannot afford to fear for you? That I cannot protect you? That I_ can _protect myself, and that by leaving me, you free my hands to fight?"_

* * *

Thor reaches for Mjolnir, fallen from his hand, as he shakes off fragments of poured stone and roars incoherent curses. Clambering from the wreckage of the wall that has collapsed around him, he swears both at his sneaky little brother and at himself for forgetting the most basic rule of quarreling with Loki: _ensure you speak to the real one._

But this world has unsettled him, every expectation pulled away from him and something slightly wrong set in its place. He leapt into the Bifrost expecting a battle he could at last win on the other side, and instead was met with clumsy courtesy and freely offered guidance. He expected a world he understood, and instead he has found that Midgard is different beyond comprehension, and he knows that Loki has years of advantage in learning its ways. It is a gap he cannot close; it has always been _Loki_ who puzzles out such things for him, whispering in his ear even from across a feasting hall.

He thought he would be recognized as a warrior of might and honor, if not at once a prince, and instead he has been turned aside and kept from the eyes of Midgard's people, for fear that he will disturb them. He expected Loki to run from him, and instead his brother ensured that they would meet. He thought that Loki would be sulking over some mischief flown out of hand, and instead he was shown a tale with no ready escape nor clear path.

And how has his brother twisted things to say that _Thor_ is in the wrong? How dare Loki stand there and accuse him? What is it he is meant to have done?

Now, though – _now_ Thor understands everything.

Now there's just his difficult little brother, losing his temper and lashing out at him.

Climbing to his feet, angry but unharmed, Thor whirls Mjolnir by its strap and roars into the imaginary forest, "Loki! Stand and face me!" At his back, the damaged wall ripples, disappearing into the image of more trees and the open sky beyond, as if he stood within a wide clearing.

But it is a false sky, and Thor longs for the open air. Still, he should not need his lightning to settle this. Whatever trap Loki has set, Thor will crush it now before its jaws can close.

This stops _here,_ and then the trap ahead will never be sprung. Let him only get his hands on his brother, and this is _over_.

"Where are you?" he challenges. "Show yourself!"

A snarl rips through the illusory trees, and Thor grins before hurling Mjolnir towards it.

The mighty hammer scythes through the trees as if they were not there – of course, they are not – but the sound of impact is only that of tearing metal and shattering stone, and Mjolnir punches through the hidden wall again before returning to his hand.

"I knew you would hide!" Thor shouts, listening for the echoes, the footsteps, the howl. Just for an instant, he closes his eyes, trying to remember where he is. His eyes are lying to him at Loki's command, and there are objects in this room that would hinder him in battle, keep him from moving freely.

But the true image of the room is lost, and still Thor refuses to put his back to this wall he found so abruptly.

A flicker of movement on his right sends him leaping to the attack, but when he slams Mjolnir into the ground, hearing the strange slick surface of the room's floor shatter and feeling the shards spray outward, there is nothing there. What had it been? A distraction? Loki, invisible? His brother's human friend, finally fleeing?

That is as it should be; no Midgardian could fight a warrior of Asgard, much less Thor himself. The mortal should have gone long since. Only soldiers stain their honor by bolting from a battlefield, and Thor is not surprised at all that a battlefield is what his brother's too-pretty offer of parley has become.

Laughing grimly, Thor calls out, "Will you run, too, brother? Turn yourself into a sparrow, and tremble invisible?"

Thor closes his eyes again, and spins Mjolnir, stirring the sluggish air into life it has not known for too long. The familiar sounds of swirling winds hiss out around him, and he listens for the places where that flow is broken, where the strength of it moves machines and pieces of metal away, and where something heavy staggers, its balance lost.

Wolf howls ring out from all directions, a horse's panicked scream from behind, an eagle's shriek from above, but Thor is trained to the battlefield, and he ignores them all.

 _There –_ and Thor charges. Imaginary trees vanish around him, and he emerges from them into the same clearing he'd fled – if it is the same, and Loki has not changed the shape of things around him. But the space is darkened now by the form of the sverðveiðimaður, its claws dug into the artificial ground hidden beneath the conjured grass and leaves and its scything teeth bared.

"Hello, Loki," Thor repeats with good cheer, and the sverðveiðimaður barks a threat, glaring at him venomously from his brother's green eyes.

Thor is no stranger to Loki's talent for shapeshifting. They have often fought side by side, Thor with Mjolnir and any weapon snatched from the hand of a dying enemy, and Loki with his knives and his fangs in turn. For over a century, he favored the form of a muddy-furred cat with teeth longer than both of Thor's hands set finger to wrist, tearing through their foes as if they were mice in a field. He saw Loki become a _dragon_ , once, and leap into the sky to soar.

Loki will become small creatures in play, and other people in mischief, but in battle he can become something big enough to fight an army.

But as long as Thor knows where he is, then that is the battle all but won.

Spinning his hammer in his hand, Thor leaps into flight above the imaginary treetops, and Loki's muzzle turns to follow him as he shouts a challenge. But this is no truly empty sky. Mjolnir clips something invisible, knocking it aside, but throwing off his flight as his shoulders strike it too.

Loki springs for him, paws striking and jaws snapping as Thor dodges among them, and fangs clip shut a breath from his shoulder. Furious spittle flies from the jaws of his brother's sverðveiðimaður form, wetting Thor's sleeve, and he grins – the beast his brother has become is real!

Far above, he senses storm clouds gathering, answering his need, and still in midair, he raises Mjolnir high to channel it down. There is a roof between him and the sky, but not for long.

But before the bolt can strike, Loki turns about and jumps for him again, no different from any hound after a hawk. Thor loses the lightning in his haste to evade the strike, and while the great teeth miss, the sverðveiðimaður's heavy chest knocks him to the ground again.

Thor rolls back to one knee, looking up alertly and stretching out a hand to call Mjolnir from the crater where it has fallen; shattered illusions and shattered stone trade places like a wavering banner. He turns to see Loki, claws skidding, master himself again and regain his balance. Even Loki has begun to ignore his illusions, and while they remain, confusing Thor's eyes as they are no doubt meant to do, Loki paces through them like shadows.

"Come on then," Thor says, barely even breathing hard. "Must I whistle for you to call you to the attack, puppy?"

Loki throws back his head and howls, a jangling and discordant noise like a thousand swords slamming together, as the bladed hunter's strong hindquarters gather beneath him for another leap.

Before the weight of his brother's form can drive him into the ground, caught to be easily bitten and clawed, Thor goes on the attack. He dives into Loki's beastly shadow, twisting and leaping into the first moments of flight, and swings Mjolnir against his brother's sverðveiðimaður shoulder.

When the strike goes straight through, the image bursting asunder and floating away like a campfire's sparks, the force of his own blow nearly throws him to the ground along with it. The earth beneath the building shudders, and somewhere far above, the roof creaks as the broken walls waver.

A boot slams into his back, and Thor does go down, but even as he falls he's rolling, grabbing for his brother's foot – _there's_ the real one again. Often the only way to tell which is real and which is illusion is to touch him. At once a blade slashes across his fingers, and Thor pulls them back with a shout as small drops of blood scatter from the narrow gash.

"Now that's the Loki I came searching for," Thor taunts him, regaining his feet with hammer in hand, casting around for his brother's next attack. "Leaping into trouble, and then wailing when it cuts him, and hiding from the mess he's made –"

Loki screams with rage – it's not quite the wail Thor had accused him of – and pounces at him from above, invisibility failing as he leaps from one of the metal frames hanging from the ceiling. Thus warned, Thor lashes out at his brother's knife hand, turning to take the impact of Loki's body against his shoulder. The blade falls, and Loki lands poorly as he tries to change direction mid-leap; he scrambles backward from Thor's backhanded blow, but Mjolnir clips his ribs.

Kicking the blade aside – knowing well that there is no use in taking away Loki's knives, for he always has more – Thor advances on his little brother as he stumbles, eyes wild, teeth bared, absolutely furious. "I am _not hiding!_ " Loki shouts, and then proves himself a liar, as if there was any doubt, by disappearing again.

"And you hide from me as you say so!" Thor shouts after him, knowing better than to lunge for where Loki was, for he is certainly no longer there. Attack, and disappear; strike, and move; snap, and run – Thor was meant for the glory of the open battlefield, and Loki for the shadows, but he knows how his brother fights.

They have fought many times in the past, in sparring and playful competition, in the momentary anger of brothers raised together, and sometimes, like now, in earnest.

Shadows and illusions and distractions – none of them real, and with the shallow aches from his brother's paws fading, Thor finds that he has lost his stomach for this fight.

There's no joy in fighting one of Loki's tantrums, and that is all this is; Loki was _fine,_ calm and rational, until he lost his temper, and Loki in a fit of temper is a mad thing.

So Thor hammers at everything that comes within his reach, finding walls and Midgardian toys by striding into them or smashing through them with Mjolnir. When his brother comes to him – as Loki surely will, for Loki can rarely leave the target of his anger alone, once he has fixed on it – Thor will be ready for him. And until then, Loki does not poison his throwing knives, so Thor can take a few shallow cuts like the one that has just hissed past his cheek, slicing above the bone. And then he can end this and bring his brother back to himself again.

"You should not have struck me, Loki!" he calls out. "I was listening! I had not heard your tale ere now, and I wished to know! You chose this fight, not I!"

The glint of a heavier blade on the edge of his vision is his only warning, and Thor turns into it, raising Mjolnir to block the stab at a gap in his armor he knows about quite well. Give his foe an easy target, and he knows where they should strike. Loki, angry and foolish with it, is no different. The knife rings against the mighty hammer, and before Loki can disappear again, Thor catches the hiss of breath drawn in sharply at a shuddering blow.

It is a tiny opening, but Thor tires of this fight, and with his empty hand, Thor grabs Loki's momentarily faltering wrist.

"No!" his brother shouts thoughtlessly, and becomes visible again, wrenching at Thor's grip. "Let go –"

But _at last_ he knows he's found the real one, and Thor lets Mjolnir fall to seize at Loki's shoulder.

That shoulder twists and changes beneath his hand, and a moment later Thor finds himself grasping at a sand-red desert lion that roars into his face and snaps for his throat –

He headbutts it sharply, and the big cat squeals at the pain in its sensitive nose. Recoiling, Loki finds a different shape, and now a mottled flying serpent coils through his hands –

Thor hauls it back, and catches its writhing tail. Well enough he had told Jane and her companions of the serpents, for he remembers now the trick Loki himself had taught them for that battle. If you lift a snake's tail, it cannot recall where the rest of it was meant to go; its tail is its anchor, having no feet –

The snake becomes a black dire wolf, twisting about to snap at the hand gripping its tail –

Ignoring the flashing fangs, Thor hauls his brother backwards and knees the wolf in the stomach, and it collapses to the ground with a breathless whimper.

"Enough!" Thor commands. He keeps a hand buried in its ruff, and glares at the nearest dazed green eye. "Loki, enough! Stand down."

A moment without a shapeshift or a howl or a bite, and then another, as Loki pants for breath, wolf tongue lolling.

"There, and are you quite done with this? Enough." The wolf bares its teeth, jowls trembling, and Thor growls back at it. "And must I speak to a wolf? Better than that beast of your enemy's, but I came to see you, brother. Wolves I have aplenty, with Father's hunters slinking through the palace hallways to whine at your door."

A twitch of muscle is his only warning, and Thor leaps to his feet as the wolf tries to spring away, shifting in mid-movement back into his little brother.

Not that his shapeshifting does _aught_ but leave Thor with a handful of Loki's dark hair, and Loki unsteady on his feet, for before he can escape, Thor slams him back to the ground with all his strength and hauls him back to his feet again.

Should the lesson not be learned, Thor catches a handful of Loki's surcoat to match and shakes him.

"I said _enough_! Be done! What do you hope to achieve?" he demands. He shrugs off the hand batting blindly at him; Loki's eyes are dazed, but perhaps his ears and mind still serve. "Do you think protesting thus will sway Father's command? You're like a child – you are _entirely_ a child, Loki, _biting_ because you do not wish to be scolded, and scolded all the more for it. Have you truly forgotten?"

Full-grown and in the joy of his warrior youth, Thor can admit that he had been a difficult child – why should Asgard's future king not do as he pleased? – but he remembers well that Loki had been _impossible._

 _Why_ this. _Why_ that. _Why_ not? _Can I? What if I? But_ I _want to,_ I'm _going to_. _No, no, no! Put me down, let me go, how dare you, you can't_ – and the moment he was released, nothing but a shadow and the sound of fleeing steps in the place of the little prince with his child's crown knocked down over his eyes.

Now, Loki shakes his head and cries out, "You don't hear me! You never have! You don't see anyone who doesn't fight you, so how else am I to get you to listen to me?"

Nonsense. He had been listening, he had only spoken some well-learned doubts – _Loki_ is at fault here, Thor did not want this fight. "I was sent here to command you to cease your protests and your plotting to return, and I have heard nothing to defy Father for."

Thor has known his brother all his life, and he knows that strangled, frustrated scream quite well. "Then take me with you to speak for myself, then, if you will not speak to Father for me! If you do not have the courage to tell him he has been unjust –"

"I cannot!" Thor snaps at him. "And I will not take you back, Loki, not I!" How can Loki ask that of him? Does he not know what will happen, then? Perhaps not. "If I take you back with me, I am to take you in chains – Father's command! – and he will only punish you further. He will send you away again. He will send you elsewhere."

Rather than shaking him again, Thor shifts his hands to his brother's shoulders and pulls him into half an embrace. If Loki drives a knife into his back, let him, but the light of battle has faded from his eyes.

"Have you not made a home here?" Thor beseeches him, his forehead against his brother's, as if he could send all of his thoughts and exasperation and recovering amusement – this _is_ the Loki he knows, after all, and the brother he misses, too – from his mind straight to Loki's. "Can you not be content with what you have? You do well enough, it seems. Enough. No more."

Loki laughs in his face, broken and bitter, and pushes him away. Thor lets him go. He lets his brother step away and tug his surcoat back from the choking line it has drawn across his throat, as he raises a hand to his scalp and winces. "As if you had never defied Father," Loki retorts. "As if you had never thrown his commands aside and done as you pleased regardless!"

He doesn't quite spit, but he spits the words. "Look at you, mewling his will as if not a thought of your own in your head. One day it'll be you!" he threatens, a spiteful promise. "And I hope whoever he sends after you is as _pitiless!_ "

From long experience, Thor knows that laughing will only send Loki into an even more blinding rage. Somehow he refrains, but within, he smiles with relief. He has known from the first blow that he could win this fight, but now he knows that he has won already. Loki is retreating, having lost control to the storms of mad passions that run through him sometimes, and when he is shouting, he fights stupidly.

Thor can win that; when Loki is mad, he is mindless. It is Loki fighting _cold_ that he really fears.

He cannot resist one more jab. "You beg for pity now? Could it be that some punishment has finally struck home? I may favor this world after all, if it has taught you –"

Loki goes for Thor's eyes with his hands turned to eagle claws, sharp points hissing through the air; Thor catches his wrists, and they wrestle for control, stomping and kicking and pushing at each other.

But Thor is the larger, and the heavier, and when they fight hand-to-hand, he always wins.

He knows the shape of this battle now. No matter that this is Midgard, concealed beneath an image of Alfheim, flickering out and fading now as Loki forgets to tend to it; they have fought this little war so many times already. This is nothing but another of Loki's tantrums. They come seemingly without reason, when something Loki has disregarded perhaps for centuries becomes offensive. They always end.

"I know you must be unhappy here," Thor tries to soothe him when Loki has despaired of ever regaining his hands, which are talons no longer. His brother will not meet his eyes, but Thor promises regardless, "I will speak to Father, when I may. There are battles to be fought, and no –" Before Loki can speak, Thor has stopped him. "– you will stay out of it, Loki. Your tricks have done enough."

He can feel his brother shaking with rage and frustration beneath his hands, and Thor is not at all surprised when green eyes flash at him and Loki says in a hiss, "I _will_ go home –"

Thor assures him, "And so you will. When Father has forgiven you. But not before."

Shaking his head in denial, Loki swears, "If you leave me here, I will –"

But Thor cuts him off from that as well, before he can utter any rash promise that will snap at their heels some day; the Norns laugh at oaths sworn in anger. "Brother, enough. Do as you are told. You curse me for not listening, well, you must learn to obey me. One day I will need to know you will serve as I send you." He tugs sharply on Loki's captured hands, reminding him which of them is the elder, and the stronger, and because Thor has already won, he decides he can be kind.

"Please, Loki. Be done with this. We have not spoken in years, and I wish to hear your tales, and would you hear mine, in return? Let us be brothers again, shall we?"

Several moments pass, in which Loki looks away, his hair hiding his face, struggling to reclaim his temper. But eventually Thor feels his brother's hands relax, and his shoulders go down in submission.

Giving in.

He waits a few more moments, listening to Loki breathe raggedly, and only when he recognizes the familiar signs of Loki in control of himself again does he let go.

"There, and see?" he tries to soothe his little brother. "We need not fight. You do well enough here, do you not?"

Loki steps away, shaking his head. It might be denial, or refusal, but Thor is irresistibly reminded of a horse tossing its mane to drive away a buzzing, biting fly. "If it were you," Loki growls, but there is little fierceness in it, "tell me you would not do all in your power –"

Irritated again, Thor reminds himself not to be. To be goaded by one of Loki's tantrums and the things he says in his madness is to be drawn into them. Instead, he says, "I would know Father would forgive me, in time."

He truly does not understand why Loki stops and stares at him, something wounded and despairing and angry on his familiar-again face.

"…but you are _you,_ " Loki says at last.

"I don't understand," Thor rumbles, unable to make sense of those words, nor the emotion buried in a battlefield grave within them.

Snorting dismissively, Loki smiles without joy, more a grimace than a grin. "No. I know you don't." He sighs as if something has grieved him, or as if he has given up hope. "And you never will."

"Loki –"

But now Thor is the one interrupted. "Enough!" Loki snaps. His hands tense around blades that do not appear. " _Enough_ , haven't you said so? Do you tire so quickly of your sport, taking your own foolishness out on me? Do as you wish, Thor, and joy of it to you."

He turns his back and lowers his head as the last of his illusions fade and disappear. The strangely heavy air of the broken Midgardian building seems to weigh him down, and now Thor can see the rubble of their battle. Broken walls shed painted fragments of poured stone. The thin pallets bound to the walls have been torn, and spill their tired innards like butchered sheep. A complex machine is broken near in two, thrown into another like it; their pieces have tangled together as if forged thus.

One of the metal frames dangling from the ceiling has been twisted aside, and Thor remembers Mjolnir and then his shoulders colliding with something like it in midair. The floor is cracked many times over, the echoes of Mjolnir's blows ripping out from each impact. Dust floats in the air, caught in the wavering lights above.

All around, the building creaks, unsteady on its footings and wounded from the forces set loose and at each other's throats within it. Thor had been wise, then, not to call on the lightning still gathered ready, far above; a single strike or a blow from Mjolnir to open the way, and the roof might have collapsed around them both. With the battle over, he senses the clouds yield to the sun and depart.

When no blow comes to finish him, Loki says tiredly, "Why did you even come here? Is it not enough I am prisoner here, that you must come and stab at the barrier to make it hiss and snap?"

He is as likely to be bitten as welcomed, and perhaps more likely to be ignored, but Thor steps closer to him and carefully rests his free hand on his brother's shoulder. Loki begins to pull away, but Thor closes his hand tighter, holding him there. He wants only to bring Loki back to his better self, back to the loyal, devoted, clever brother whom Thor will rely upon to work his will, someday.

"I came only to warn you away from trying to make your way home again on your own. Father and I have wars to fight," Thor reminds him. _A war you began, though perhaps you did not mean to_ , he does not say. "We cannot be looking over our shoulders for you always. We have Asgard to defend, and will you truly call us away from that?"

Their Realm is his brother's greatest weakness, perhaps his greatest love, and Loki flinches at the jab. "Damn you," he mutters.

Smiling now, Thor squeezes his shoulder tighter in reassurance. "When we are victorious," he promises, "when Father's heart is lighter, then I will speak to him for you, and he will call you home."

"You cannot promise that," Loki says, flat and cold, and Thor can well believe that his brother has run his passions dry in a single outburst. So, too, has he done many times on Asgard, going from seeming indifference to blistering rage to exhausted resignation in less time than it takes Thor to drain a horn of mead.

He is sure of this; he tested it once. Loki struck the drinking horn from his lips and fled the hall.

"It is all I can do."

Loki will not meet his eyes, and he says only, "You could believe in me, for once in your life."

Baffled, Thor releases his brother's shoulder only to clap his hand down on the opposite one, wrapping an arm around him in an embrace now that it is safer to do so. "Loki, what are you talking about? Midgard has made you bitter; where is my brother who hunted and fought by my side, knowing nothing can stop us?"

"A long way from home."

"I know," Thor says ruefully. "And I am sorry. I could not have fought Father for you. Now, are we in accord, Loki? You must stay here, for now. It is not forever. And you have done well to untangle the threads of this world, even to weave them yourself!"

Loki pushes Thor's hand from his shoulders, but does not turn and strike him, nor does he howl protest. He only stands helpless and defeated.

Well, and let him sulk. It was his own actions that brought him to this place, from the choices he made on Alfheim – why had he not merely told Father of the trap that had befallen him? _Loki_ has no need to seem invulnerable and confident of his every move, not when all Asgard knows it is Thor who will hold the throne one day. And he cannot think to strike his elder brother and escape unscathed; Thor will not stand for it.

But – "I hear you," Loki says at last. "I understand."

"Excellent!" Thor cries out, truly relieved. There, and it is over! The fight is settled, his task here complete, and now they can be brothers again. They can speak freely and without the weight of Odin's command between them; that sword has struck and can be sheathed again.

"Now, will you tell me of this world?" he asks. As he speaks, he catches Loki's shoulder again and pulls him towards the now-visible door to the open air, sun-bright and scorching as it is. Let them leave this place of battle, and let it be forgotten. As Loki follows him without protest, and they emerge into the sunlight, he goes on, "What have you wrought since last we spoke? Your man spoke highly of you."

Thor means only _companion_ , as the Warriors Three are to him and Sif has chosen to be only, but the tiny hesitation in Loki's step nearly brings a beaming smile to his face. He tries to conceal it; if Loki believes himself mocked, he will speak only mockery in return. But he would not be surprised at all if things between Loki and his mortal friend were more intimate.

On Asgard, there is no shame in sharing your bed with the one who shares your battles – who better to understand you?

While Thor does not have Loki's eye for the tiny signals of eyes and body, the quirks of lips and the twitches of hands and tiny flickers of expressions and movement that betray an ambassador's true intentions, he could not have missed the way that the man had looked at Loki as he moved and spoke. They had not been the eyes of someone who cared nothing, or only shallowly, as an ally or a friend by chance.

There is no wrong in that, Thor believes magnanimously. He thinks well of the Midgardians he has met so far, although they are of course mortal and less than his own Asgardian warriors, and while he believes his brother's exile justified, there was no cause for Loki to be utterly alone within it.

And it is hardly likely that the man will come to the gates of the palace one day with a child in arms, begging recognition and recompense, so there is no harm in it at all.

As he'd hoped, mention of Loki's friend jolts him a pace away from the anguish his brother cannot quite hide from him, try as he might. The All-Father truly could not have chosen a sharper punishment, to set Loki aside from the world he loves and even the trouble he caused, and in doing so, to say that he cannot be trusted to set to rights the chaos he had set alight.

"Who, Tony?" Loki startles. Distracted, even if only slightly, he manages a shaky smile. "He is…" He considers his words as Thor leads him out towards the open desert, and decides on, "the finest smith in all Midgard. Perhaps one day you'll see some of his work."

Loki sighs again, and _at last_ speaks more freely; at last Loki seems to be his brother again, and not a wounded wolf cast from the pack. "Beneath it all, Midgard is not unlike Asgard. Let me tell you of a war they once fought…"

* * *

Sunset finds them speaking as if the town below, nestled beneath the foothills, were any camp of their own soldiers, and as if this were any other campaign. Far to go, and battles to win, with the bruises of the day's combat fading beneath their armor. And battles to plan, as well, and so Thor is speaking of the force he led into the canyons where one of Alfheim's rebellious hill lords had been hiding. It had been a battle Loki would have enjoyed, each side creeping around each other hunting for the advantage, pouncing silently out of the dark in ambush like owls.

Loki's tales of Midgard defy belief and understanding, and Thor has long since refused to hear any more of them. But the chaos that Alfheim has sunk into, and the efforts of Asgard's forces to restore order, or at the least to remind the light elves who their overlords are regardless of their petty feuds – these things both princes understand. And Thor is glad to see his brother display such interest, seizing on news of home and smiling to speak of Asgard again.

They sit across from each other on separate stones. Thor is grieved that Loki still finds it necessary to stay out of his reach, but the distance between them is not as hostile as it was. Indeed, as the shadows began to lengthen, Loki had turned his hands upward, paused in concentration, and conjured two goblets of clear, cold water from the air.

He'd held them both out, letting Thor choose between the identical pair, and he had smiled as he had done so, even chuckling as if there were some jest he was not willing to share.

Their weapons have been set aside. Mjolnir rests upon a stretch of flattened sand, and Loki had flipped his two long knives into a prickly thing called a _cactus_ , its thorns as sharp as the blades that pierced it, drawing forth foul water like blood. Either of them could call his favored weapon to his hand in a moment, but that matters not at all. It is a gesture, but one with great meaning.

Lady Jane and Loki's companion Tony Stark find them there, as well.

"What's this?" Tony says in greeting, raising both hands in friendly surrender, offering no threat. His eyes are all for Loki, resting only for a wary moment on Thor. "Everyone okay? It got a little loud back there…" No warrior, this one, trained to hide his thoughts and the cut of his next strike. His anxiety, for Loki as much as himself and his world, shows clearly, lit strangely by that glowing talisman barely hidden by his garb.

Yes, besotted, Thor thinks, and is greatly amused.

"What _happened?_ " Jane demands, pushing herself forward and confronting them fearlessly. Thor smiles back at her outrage, enjoying the surprise and the amazement that lie alongside it. The feats she speaks of are to his credit, and he is pleased that she has begun to learn of his might. "There was an _earthquake_ , and there were storm clouds out of nowhere –"

"We disagreed," Thor says cheerfully.

Loki adds flatly, _beaten_ showing in every line of his body as he hunches his shoulders and looks away from the Midgardians, "We've settled it."

It is a small sound, but Thor does not miss the sharply indrawn breath that Tony takes along with the half-step towards Loki where he bows his head in defeat. "Are…" he starts, and hesitates, searching for his words.

Still, even as he flinches, seeing that Loki has lost his battle, he cannot hide the hope in his voice when he says, "…are you staying, then?"

Loki straightens his back, but will not look at his friend as he folds his arms and says, "It appears I have no choice."

Wordlessly, Tony holds out a hand to him.

Thor watches with amused interest – Jane pretends to be looking anywhere else, and Thor is pleased that she chooses him for her scrutiny – as a heartbeat passes, and then another, and then a third.

Then Loki takes his hand and lets Tony pull him to his feet.

 _There_ , Thor says to himself, pleased. Loki will be fine, if he will only allow himself to be.

Had Thor found Loki gathering warriors to his banner, he might have felt differently. But he truly does wish Loki all the happiness he can find; his little brother's punishment does not need to be a torment, only a rebuke.

Loki holds on to his companion's hand for another pair of heartbeats, meeting and holding Tony's eyes, and Thor wonders what passes between them. He is not his brother, to read secrets from the gaze of someone he does not know, much less the mysteries that lovers build among themselves.

Still, as he too rises to his feet, he smiles to see Loki place his trust in another, even a mortal. It is acceptable that Loki court this mortal. Indeed, Thor would mislike it if Loki should gather a court of his own on Asgard, in rival to Thor's own battle-forged and honor-bound companions.

Releasing his companion, who moves to stand at Loki's shoulder quite properly, Loki turns back to Thor. He raises his head, trying to regain some of his dignity, and Thor nods, letting him have it.

"I never wanted to fight with you," he says bitterly.

"Nor I you, brother," Thor leaps at that chance to make peace. Better by far that Loki should consent, rather than forcing Thor to break him until he obeys as he must.

Hesitantly, Loki offers, "…will you dine with me, then? Tony, is there –"

"Yeah, I think we can manage something," his mortal replies. "Sure."

Thor cannot repress a sigh of relief. His tantrum over, Loki is behaving properly, as a prince of Asgard and a younger brother and a defeated warrior. They have fought, but it is over. Loki has accepted Thor's victory, and so they are brothers again.

"I would be glad of it, brother," Thor says, reassured. He turns to Jane, who is watching them both with disbelief, and adds, "You must join us!"

He grows quite fond of the way she looks at him, with wonder and disbelief and interest clear on her pleasant face, and of the way she smiles when he looks at her. It is as if she grows larger under his attention, raising her head and squaring her shoulders, straightening her spine to not be overlooked. Small as she is, she is finely made in body and mind.

"Are your companions well?" he goes on, knowing how close she is to them; they are never far from her thoughts, and she was frightened by what she felt of the battle. "I would not have them fear me, nor believe that I have harmed my brother, after all you and yours did to bring us together again."

Jane nearly falls over her words as she hastens to reassure him in turn. "No, no, no, I'm sure they didn't think that – and yes, of course!" She steps closer to him, and he takes her arm carefully, remembering her doing the same only the day before, in that small market.

"I mean, if that's okay with –" she checks, turning back to Loki and the man at his side.

Tony grins. "Sure, why not? I love a party." He turns his face up to Loki, beaming, and says, "You _know_ how I love a party."

"You'll find any excuse, won't you?"

The man laughs with relief as he nudges his shoulder against Loki's and says, "Better you've got some noise and company than sulk…" and the laugh dies in his throat.

Very slowly, Loki looks down at him, some shade of the falcon he'd been years ago lingering in his movements, as if he might dive from the sky with talons ready to tear.

"…staying in your room alone," Tony rescues his sentence, fooling no one.

Loki glares at him, then rolls his eyes and looks away.

With Jane pressed against his side where she'd flinched into his protection thoughtlessly, Thor chuckles, not bothering to hide the sound this time. Loki _really_ likes this man, or his blood would be darkening the sands.

"Right…" Tony rallies, and challenges, "So. Hey. Big guy. Are you as hard to get drunk as your brother here?"

* * *

" _Tony, promise me – can you watch me lie with all that I am, knowing that I do so, and betray nothing?"_

 _Tony brings the hand in his up to his lips, brushing a kiss over Loki's slim fingers. "I will," he swears. "I promise."_

 _He's rewarded with perhaps the most open smile he's ever seen on Loki's face, and a kiss that breathes against his mouth, almost_ asking _for permission, and Tony lets his eyelids fall together and his lips apart._

 _Loki kisses him like_ Tony _is_ _the wondrous one here, slow and savoring and grateful, tongue brushing against his lightly, tasting everything he has to offer along with the echoes of his words. Magician's hands comb through his hair and scratch the lightest of lines down his throat, one settling over his heart as the other cradles his skull, and Loki's lips against his are gentle at first, but the spark that has always lain between them is fanned higher with every traded breath._

 _When he draws away, Tony tries to chase after him, sensing the reluctance. But the hand on his chest keeps him still, and he opens his eyes to see Loki looking at him with something that might be disbelief – not doubt, but amazement._

" _Then I'll trust you, my warrior," he says, and his smile sparks back to life, mischievous and challenging._

" _Here's how we win."_

* * *

 _To be continued._


	18. The Godfather

ON WITH THE SHOW!

* * *

 **Chapter Eighteen: The Godfather**

Jane is awake at a reasonable hour the next morning because she'd had the sense to leave when the really strong alcohol started being poured. But by then, no one noticed her calling it a night; Darcy was asleep on a couch and Thor and Loki were arguing – peacefully enough – over a table they'd been plotting out the invasion of another planet on more or less all evening.

She'd expected catastrophe, attempted murder with a dinner fork, or at least a frozen, forced-cordial atmosphere worse than any extended family Christmas dinner. But instead it had been…fine. Thor had kept telling stories, just with Loki correcting him or adding details that he hadn't seen, both of them putting back enough alcohol to drown anyone else. Stark had shrugged at her amazed look and confessed that he'd been trying to get Loki drunk for years, unsuccessfully. Just before she left, they were opening a bottle of vodka she didn't even know _came_ that strong.

But before that there had been a world modeled across the table with commissary-issue takeout boxes as castles, and plates as camps, and the cutlery that neither Asgardian was using showing angles of attack. Eventually, Stark had left the room and returned with a fistful of Sharpies, handing one off to Loki and inviting him to go ahead and just draw on the table already.

Loki had clicked the mechanism twice, almost absently, and then done so – in glowing green lines of magic that hovered a breath above the tabletop.

"Showoff," Stark had said, grinning and settling back at the table to watch. Jane hadn't been able to follow the conversation – too many strange names – and the engineer probably hadn't been any better off, but then she didn't really think he'd been listening at all. Oh no. He'd been watching, with a strange expression part relief and part sadness on his face. So Darcy had been _right_.

Resisting the urge to do some staring of her own – silly, silly Jane, you don't like frat boys and he's an alien, which is way more amazing, and he's leaving – she'd removed herself into Erik's company as he kept a wary eye on Thor and Loki, but mostly Loki, who, in a simple t-shirt and dark jeans, had looked strangely human next to Thor. And they'd just watched the spectacle of the two princes trying to figure out a war.

Plus Darcy begging for a light pen of her own, and – before Jane or Erik could stop him – Loki giving in and making her a purple one.

Maybe it's like a glow stick and the effect will fade after a day or so.

Maybe Jane is going to find every inch of the New Mexico lab, and then the world, doodled on in glowing purple.

Now, she washes her face and her hands, shakes her head at the permanently dazed expression in the mirror, notes absently that she's still wearing that leather-cord bracelet, fiddles briefly with the clasp, gets distracted by the realization that she'd better get to work now before the day's heat kicks in, and heads out to the Tennis Courts of Science.

Darcy's name.

Fortunately, they haven't been labeled yet. But they are tennis courts, or at least what's left of one. The original enclosing fence had collapsed, weathered by the desert, and Jane can still feel some mesh underfoot as she walks towards the safety of the court surface. Two "fields" wide, but a single stretch of concrete, it's bleached to a grubby white and cracked slightly. The nets are long gone, and the lines are a faint memory; broken pieces of metal might have been a referee's seat once.

The still-shining new equipment ringing it, protected by tarps and concrete barriers hurriedly erected from K-rails, is what she's come here for. This is her open-air testing ground. It's set some distance away from the nearest building – far enough so that any long-ago stray tennis balls wouldn't brain anyone, she imagines – and the expanse of small boulders and scraggly desert vegetation is the only thing between her and the grey-brown foothills. Somehow there's snow on the blue mountains even further beyond.

She gets the same feeling of magnificent distance from it as she does from the night sky, which she knows is wrong, but that's what the human eye and brain have evolved to understand: distances the body could, eventually, run. As pleasant as that is – Jane has stared into the stars for hours, and feels like she could spend as long watching the badlands – it's an illusion. There's only so far _anyone_ could run: the canyons and gullies of the badlands of Nevada are legendary. It's a real maze, a true labyrinth; anything that gets lost in there probably isn't coming out, and that's if the Air Force doesn't literally get their shot in first.

Something must have drifted out there anyway, or been discarded, because it winks at her like the first star. The morning sun flashes off a piece of scrap metal, or maybe a lost hubcap from the tire tracks still faintly impressed into the dirt.

Actually, Jane feels right at home here as she checks on the detectors and scanners. She's not happy about the expanse of radioactive bomb range to the north, but otherwise, it's just another desert lab, albeit one with _great_ technology. Despite its appearance, Mercury is almost more comfortable than Puente Antiguo. Even though she's mostly stayed with the lab Stark had turned most of the cutely named Atomic Motel into, there's a lot more underneath than she first thought, from the look of the surface. The few locals she's encountered have been very polite and helpful, but mostly noncommittal, and they've mostly been left to their own (lovely, shiny) devices.

The aliens somewhere back in the town, probably sleeping off killer hangovers, are almost incidental. (Sure. She'll keep telling herself that.) She almost understands the physics she came here to learn about. And with a bit more data, maybe she finally will. If nothing else, these are really good sensors, and she's going to get a wealth of data out of them. Maybe more than she can handle, but not more than she needs.

She needs to know it all. It's what drives her, really.

This has been an unexpected and bizarre, but good, trip.

"Morning!" Erik hails her, and Jane turns around to see her friend waving as he approaches, closely followed by –

"Well, look who's up already!" Jane says, unable to suppress a grin. At least she doesn't say _you sure can hold your liquor; I knew you were a frat boy_ aloud. "Morning, Erik. Good morning, Thor."

"Good morning, my lady," Thor says with a half-bow. Mjolnir swings idly from his hand like it's been glued there; she's never seen him without it for more than a few minutes. "Are these your machines?"

"All set up and ready. Stark actually came through. These are the best anyone could get outside of a lab – there are some machines that can't go outdoors like this. I was just checking the calibrations on some of them." She's babbling, and she hates herself for it, but crucial bits of her brain shut down around Thor. The sunlight suits him, and she's an idiot. "No more earthquakes, okay?"

"Loki tested me, and it was necessary that I answer. I thought not of your devices." Thor looks like a wrongly scolded puppy. How can this be the same man who'd been planning a war last night? Obviously she'll never really understand Asgardians; she wishes Stark luck. "They are repaired now?"

Erik's moving among them already, checking her work. It doesn't need it, but she doesn't mind. They're a team; science is also double- and triple-checking. "Looks good," he calls over, tweaking a couple of settings on a detector.

"Then I must return to Asgard," Thor announces.

Despite herself, Jane's heart sinks. "Already?" she asks. "You just got here."

He sets the hammer down by his feet – it settles into the dust immovably – and smiles at her. "Aye. There is a war yet to be won, and every moment I am away is a moment the lines change without me. I have accomplished my mission here. I know my brother lives, and that was all I was sent to learn."

"So you're just leaving him here?" Erik asks, a little warily, as he always is about anything to do with Loki.

Thor turns to include him too, which lets Jane get her breath back. "Father commanded it so, for a while longer. I thank you for your service to me and to my world." He nods to Erik, but takes Jane's hand and bows over it. "My lady."

At a loss for words, Jane stutters out, "It was, uh, very nice to meet you. I wish you didn't have to go so soon," and instantly regrets it. Covering for herself, she says hurriedly, "You can't wait until Darcy wakes up? She'll be sorry she missed saying goodbye to you. She likes you."

Blue eyes meet hers in an absolutely charming smile. "You are fortunate in your friends. But I must depart. Perhaps we shall see each other again soon."

Behind him, Jane sees Erik shrug resignedly. "Best get moving then," he says. "Jane, you know, the less time this equipment stays out in the dust…"

"Right, right," Jane agrees automatically, and tries to shake herself loose of her silly fantasies. She has a rule. No Frat Boys. Doesn't matter if they're human, or a Viking god from space. But…she _likes_ him, okay? She likes that he trusts her when she says, "Stand there, please" and points him to the center of the court, which Darcy marked yesterday with a duct-tape X. For all he knows, these machines are laser cannons and she's just put him on the death spot.

She likes that he's still walking around in his Asgardian armor even though it's morning on Earth and nothing's going to attack him. He's so comfortable in it that he doesn't care what anyone else thinks. She wishes she had half that confidence, sometimes. She has to work at it, and it seems to come to him so naturally.

She even envies him his singularity of purpose, and the blasé way he's traveled between worlds, and is now preparing to go back, with the air of someone who's just driven to the grocery store and back. And she wants to hear more about the world he's come from: not just the battles he enjoys so much, but the little things. Do they have schools there? How do near-immortals fill their time? Is there music? Are there plays? Does someone still have to fix the plumbing? Are there secretly subways beneath the streets that horses trot down?

Mysteries, and no time left to ask; every scientist she knows would be screaming at her, pointing out that she has a genuine alien life-form here and she doesn't even know if he's built on DNA or not. (He's eaten their food and been fine, though, so initial signs point to yes.) But she's not a biologist, much less a xenobiologist; what do they expect her to do, steal a lock of his hair? He'd misinterpret that; hell, Darcy would laugh her socks off. Maybe she can ask Loki. He's just as alien, and Stark will probably know how to find him.

Somehow she doubts that'll work out.

But she won't be that girl, the one dragging on some guy's hand because she doesn't want him to leave her. Instead, she points Erik to the detectors that need starting up, and she brings up the programs and parameters she'd saved from her own equipment, plugging a flash drive into a converter program. It takes the computer no time at all to get everything ready. This is some good technology.

Nice to have money.

"Okay," she says at last, looking over to where Thor is waiting patiently, hammer in hand. "I…think of us, sometimes?"

Thor smiles at her. "You have my word." He looks up into the clear sky, and calls out, "Heimdall! I'm ready!"

For a second, nothing happens, and Jane remembers in a sudden flurry of panic: _wait, I never told you, you're hidden, Loki hid you with that…_ But then she looks again, and sees that both of Thor's wrists are bare of anything but the metal guards he was wearing in the first place.

He must really be forgiven, and Jane shakes her head in disbelief.

And then rainbow fire blazes down from the sky.

She's expecting it this time, and the scorching desert sun presents less of a contrast than the starry skies of midnight, but it's just as impressive anyway. This time Jane's reminded of a waterfall, colors she doesn't have names for flashing within it and across its surface, as if someone in the sky had turned on a fire hose and pointed it straight down. It burns into her eyes and she raises a hand to protect them, squinting through her fingers as she tries to spot the shadow somewhere within it…

Somewhere very far away, she can hear her sensors and particle detectors and spectrographs singing, gulping down data and footage and information. But in the face of so much power, even Jane can't think about theories brought to life.

She's fixated by the wonder of it. It's _beautiful._

Forever goes by, and no time at all, and then there's only the sparks still floating through her eyes, and wisps of ash from the surface of the Tennis Courts of Science, and an intricate geometrical pattern like an alien fingerprint etched into them, black on faded white. There's Erik standing on the opposite side of the circle, his hand raised to block out the heart of the light in the same way, and there's the faint taste of ozone in the air. Everything around her seems shocked into silence, like the world has stopped to stare.

And Thor is gone.

* * *

Stars and the flickering patterns that are the branches of the Tree of Worlds streak past him as he soars, the Bifrost's power burning and keening as it bears him home. All his senses are buried beneath its force, but he has flown across the Bridge too many times to recall, and his balance is untouched by its roar and the weight of Mjolnir in his hand.

The rainbow opens on Heimdall's golden chamber, curved walls turning around the changeless guardian who holds it all in place, the Gatekeeper's strong, dark face as near to carven stone as ever. Thor strides from the flight between worlds with perfect confidence, bootheels ringing against the gleaming, unmarked metal.

All the Realms are Asgard's – some know it less keenly than others – but only one is _Asgard_ , perfect and eternal, and _his_ , and _home_. No matter how far Asgard's work and Asgard's wars take him, this is where he belongs. He savors the _right_ taste of the air and basks in the sight of the Rainbow Road, stretching away beyond the spinning chamber and leading his eyes straight to the rearing walls of the palace standing proudly high above the city; below, firelight and light-spells glow together, their rich colors blending. Beneath the Road, the shadow-dark sea reflects the stars, striking sparks from the peaks of the waves as they pour over the lip of the world into mist.

"Heimdall," Thor nods to the Gatekeeper as he withdraws his sword from the pedestal. All around him, the workings of the Bridge slow and grind to their rest, and the snap of the great magic in the air fades. "What news of Alfheim?"

"The All-Father will inform you," Heimdall says, and Thor scowls faintly. Why can Heimdall never merely _answer?_ "He bids you attend him at once, upon your return. So he commanded me, and so I have told you in his name."

"Is this not one of the safest places on Asgard, if there are secrets to be spoken?" Thor complains. _No one_ would dare spy upon the Gatekeeper. Who could? Even Loki cannot always walk unseen beneath Heimdall's eye, and here within his chamber is where Heimdall's power is strongest. "But if my father has spoken, then I shall go to him."

Thor waves an ironic salute in passing, turning his back on Heimdall without hesitation. Great sword and great power, but what has Asgard's prince to fear?

"You return quickly," Heimdall rumbles, and adds as if suspicious, "I could not see you."

Well, let him be, prisoned to his duty here; Heimdall does not ride and fight and roam freely, so perhaps he must find joy elsewhere. Snorting, Thor says, "One of Loki's amusing little spells. Easily broken, but they entertain him so." He pulls the torn bracelet from within his armor, proof of his successful errand, and lets it dangle from his fingers, ragged edges trailing as he departs.

All very well to see Asgard through the gateway, well enough to speak to the Gatekeeper, but the sight of the piebald horse awaiting him is the arrow that strikes the knowledge home. The warmth of horseflesh beneath his hand, the way she lips at his shoulder in mild curiosity, the stutter-step she takes as he mounts and guides her nose back towards her stable in the city – these things are real and right. Enough of Midgardian vehicles, enclosed and stinking of burning poisons, rattling with every spin of wheels, passive and dull; enough of the yawning endless desert and the punishing sky.

This is as it should be, as Thor is in no great haste to return to his father's side. Midgard was a strange place, but at least it was not Alfheim, where even the doubled sunlight now seems accusing, and every shadow hides a trap-spell or a squealing but ignorant rebel, striking at Asgard's forces merely to strike with no hope of victory and no clear aim. He understood Midgard no better, but there the burden of waging a war that does not behave as it should had been taken from his shoulders for a few days. Now he must return to it.

But Thor is a warrior, a soldier and a prince who knows his duty, and he spends no time wondering at the familiar splendor of Asgard's matchless palace. A word to a servant, and he is guided to a courtyard where warriors train.

Swords flash and spark as twoscore _einherjar_ step through their paces, weapons clashing, armor shining less brightly with the mock combat. The sound of metal on metal as they strike and spar is familiar all the way down to his bones, and Thor smiles broadly at it, hefting Mjolnir in his hand. Asgard's might is Asgard's warriors, disciplined and ready, obedient unto death and loyal to their king, and he will lead these soldiers in battle soon.

Above them, a raven soars outward, disappearing over the vine-draped walls with a mocking croak and a flutter of feathers, and Thor traces its flight back to the stairway leading from the palace's halls to the courtyard's ground, open to the air.

At its head, Odin All-Father, King of Asgard, commander of armies, conqueror of worlds, stands looking out over the warriors as they train. The expression on his face is flat with judgment as the division's leader calls out attacks and defenses, points out errors, praises valor, snaps a warrior back into line when he grows too wild, forcing them into the discipline their service requires. Odin says nothing, makes no motion, but every man in that courtyard knows keenly that he is there.

That _power_ is something his son covets. A single gesture, and Odin can command stillness, or death, or war. A nod, and warriors will die for him. Silence, and they will labor all the harder to please him.

Standing on the edge of the courtyard, Thor lifts a hand in greeting, and sees his father's single eye shift to him. A moment passes, and then Odin beckons to him curtly.

It is only a few steps from courtyard to stairway, and soon enough he faces his father again.

"They go to Alfheim?" Thor asks of the warriors below.

"Are they yours, do you ask?" Odin corrects him. "Perhaps. Should I judge you ready to lead them."

Spine stiffening in irritation at the reproach, Thor insists, "I am, Father! The canyon could have been taken, with more men –"

"And the true leaders would have been elsewhere, as they have been from every battle we fight. It is they we seek, not the rabble they gather to themselves and send out as diversions."

"Well, and they will show themselves," Thor grumbles. "I will take Alfheim entire and leave them nowhere to hide."

Odin does not answer, and Thor knows better than to ask; the All-Father will give his commands soon enough. Instead, they watch the practice bouts in silence, until the commander calls a halt, and as one the soldiers turn to their king and their prince and bow tribute. Dismissed with a gesture, they scramble from the courtyard.

When Thor turns away to follow them, to learn their names and their experience and their readiness for battle, Odin stops him below the stair with as easy a gesture. "I have not given you leave to go."

"Nor have you told me what you wish of me," he retorts as the king descends to look him in the eye. He resists the desire to step away, to regain some distance – they have quarreled, of late – and instead rubs his fingers across the familiar haft of Mjolnir, which over centuries by his side has weathered to his hand. But he keeps the great hammer low: he would never be fool enough to threaten the All-Father. Rage at him, certainly, but fight? Impossible. It is a truth that holds up his world like the central beam of a lodge.

"And what of your brother?" Odin asks. "I trust from your return that you found him wherever he has wandered to, and reminded him of my decree?"

Ah, well, that is safer; there, at least, he has done nothing wrong. "He expected me, and sent mortal guides to lead me to him, good people." Thor thinks of Jane and Erik and Darcy fondly. "Loki is unhappy, but unharmed. He attempted to breach our borders out of frustration and a desire to return home, not to bedevil us. He has gathered allies to himself, and has told them of his true nature, but I do not believe he could move against us."

"It has been long since we visited Midgard," Odin says almost conversationally. "Once we fought Laufey's army for its shores, allowing them no foothold there. Do they recall that it was we who saved that world?"

And how can he answer his father truly? How can he lay out Midgard, a world he must labor to understand, like a slain deer for the inspection of Asgard's king? Shaking his head, Thor admits, "It is a strange world. They remember little, but they have learned much. With so little time to live, and without magic, they build cities to rival Asgard, and they never cease to ask how a thing is done, and to pester until they can put words to it they understand. We should not underestimate them."

Odin chuckles wryly, and a flutter of trepidation uncoils in his son's stomach. It is never a _good_ sound, that laugh. It heralds ruin for someone, somewhere.

"Well and good, then," he says, looking Thor over. "I expected no less of you. I am almost impressed."

The brief surge of pride hisses empty like a punctured water-skin. "Almost?" Thor protests. "What more would you have me do?"

Staring at him levelly, Odin goes on, "It is very well done."

"I…thank you?" he answers, puzzled.

"So I will ask you one more time," Asgard's king says firmly, single eye very sharp, lips twisted into a cynical half-smile. His son recognizes the feeling of a trap sprung that he has walked into with eyes open, and wishes again to step away, to turn and run, but he cannot. There is nowhere to run, and nowhere he _would_ , for here is where he must be, even as Odin asks, "Where's your brother –"

* * *

"Awwww," Darcy says for the dozenth time, kicking her sneakers against the computer desk. "I wanted to say goodbye! No, I wanted him not to go at all. He's funny. I was gonna teach him how to use a cell phone."

"He insisted, Darcy," Erik says for the…fourth time, not that Jane's counting. No, she's browsing through the data her sensors collected, trying to get a feel for it rather than diving into the details. There are traces of particles that don't fit into the Standard Model, patterns in the surges of energy she's already spotting that just don't make any sense. She can see them, but she can't understand them. What if their current understanding of physics is completely wrong? What if Thor's from another dimension, or a parallel universe, or something, where physics is different, and she's looking at the workings of a completely alien system? What if the universe just doesn't care if humans can do the math?

She's going to throw herself into it, because what she could learn here is tantalizing and wonderful, groundbreaking if she can only puzzle it out, and that was the _point_ , and she's not going to miss Thor too. Already she's caught herself glancing up, knowing that he's about to touch something he shouldn't, or pick up something and ask about it, and she'll find herself trying to explain sandwich bags, or ice machines, or baseball caps.

Erik had tried to explain baseball; they'd gotten _nowhere_.

"Sorry, Darcy," she says, reaching out and patting her intern on the back. "It's going to be weird to go back to normal, I guess."

Darcy grunts what might be agreement. "This is not what you said we'd be doing back at school."

"Fine, next time I'll put 'may be asked to ferry Viking thunder gods across the southwestern US' on the –"

Jane doesn't get to finish her sentence, because Darcy sits up from where she's draped over the arm of the chair, all smiles, and starts waving like a lunatic. "Hey!" she shouts, staring out the window behind Jane. "Over here! Here we are! There you are! Guys, guys, he's back!"

"Back?" Erik says, as Darcy races past him and out of the otherwise empty inn they've been working and staying in, one of the few functioning aboveground buildings. He and Jane glance at each other, and as one, put down their laptops and stack the storage devices with the new data on the table before following Darcy outside.

Just outside the doorway, Jane stops and stares in absolute disbelief.

The man in the otherwise empty street that Darcy has just flying-tackle-hugged is definitely Thor. Nobody else looks like that, right down to the baffled look as Darcy tries to squeeze him and stops before she hurts herself. His hair is slightly rumpled, giving him a 'just got out of bed' look that, abstractly, Jane thinks looks really good on him, even if he does look slightly hungover with it. That mostly leather armor can't crease, but he's blinking a lot in the midmorning sun, eyes a bit glazed. He moves carefully as he steps around Darcy, and it's less of a stride this morning than a shuffle. Beside his open hand, Mjolnir dangles loosely from its carry-strap, wound around his wrist next to a discreet and entirely forgettable leather cord.

"But that's not possible," Jane says to herself. "I would have seen the bridge…"

Erik is right beside her, and with the last corner of her mind that's paying attention to anything but the cheerful golden alien prince approaching them, she hears him saying to himself, "Oh, no," almost too quietly to hear, as he shakes his head in denial. "Oh, no. Oh, no."

"Good morning, my lady," Thor calls out to her, as if he hadn't said that already. "Greetings, Darcy, why do you cling to me so? Erik, are you well?"

"You're back!" Darcy enthuses. "Man, that was a really fast turnaround."

Thor stops – well, he'd made it to the front of the motel to join them anyway – and stares down at Darcy, obviously puzzled. It's the same blank incomprehension with which he'd looked at billboards for Las Vegas, and traffic lights. "Back?" he rumbles.

Jane feels a humiliated flush begin to burn across her face as she figures it out _,_ and in a very flat voice, she says, "You left three hours ago."

"Oh no," Erik's still whispering beside her. Maybe he too is remembering: _shapeshifting,_ Loki had _told_ them. "Oh _no…"_

* * *

"– Loki?"

For several heartbeats, Odin need do nothing but stare his son down, as Thor freezes in surprise. Flickers of expression dart across his familiar face; the true fear is quickly suppressed, covered over by surprise, indignation, confusion, hurt. All bright and clear in the morning sun, and all completely false. Perfect, to other eyes, but Odin All-Father has but one eye to be deceived, and the one that is not there sees further.

Some younger and more foolish part of him admires the simple trick, amused by the sheer gall of it. The all-powerful king he has been for many centuries is merely resigned, intolerant of the blatant defiance. Not for a moment is he surprised – he truly expected no less of his resentful, deceptive, over-clever younger son.

He no longer pays heed to the tiny fragment of himself that looks at this talent of Loki's and trembles; run as this horse might, he still holds the reins, and the spurs in readiness, should he need them.

At last his firstborn's face is cleaved in two by a grin that does not belong there. Loki's smile on Thor's features looks entirely wrong, but Odin does not let it disturb him. He only keeps his own expression locked and cold as blond hair and stocky shoulders, stubble-fringed jaw and blue eyes, red cloak and silver armor, all vanish in a shimmer.

"How did you know?" Loki asks, himself again and smirking to be somewhere forbidden to him.

They have stood here so many times, with Loki defiant and defensive, often insisting that he has not been _told_ he could not do whatever mischief he has dreamed up this time. At least the trouble Thor gets into is something Odin can understand, but Loki…Loki is different. How many times more?

Saying none of this – he does not speak of it even to Frigga – Odin says only, " _That_ is very good, but not quite right." He breaks eye contact only to glance at the warhammer held lightly in Loki's right hand; all else of Thor's has vanished, but not Mjolnir.

Which it cannot truly be, and Loki shrugs, dismissive. "Of course not," he says casually, but Odin knows his son, and knows better. "But perhaps only you would notice the forgery." Spinning the hammer rapidly through his fingers like one of his knives, Loki rests it across his shoulders, too nonchalant, where it gleams with rippling magic and dissolves into a length of metal half an arm long. Shifting patterns flow across it, twining with each other like branches of the Tree and sparking as they slow like water splashing against a river stone.

"No empty illusion would have fooled Heimdall, and it was only his eye I needed to elude. Or why would I stand here before you? You needn't look at me like that," Loki snaps, and Odin grits his teeth. He has every right and every reason to glare disapprovingly, how _dare_ this impudent brat – but it is a question that has long gone unanswered. Loki dares because he _does_. "Had I wished to flee into Asgard's wilds and hide there, mounting raids on the palace under cover of darkness, I would be away already."

Rather than rising to this bait, Odin merely asks tiredly, "What do you want, Loki?"

Loki smiles anger and danger, teeth showing, bitter and barely pretending courtesy, and his eyes shine with the magic resting across his shoulders more than the sunlight reflecting from the palace walls. "I thought we might talk."

* * *

Clouds begin to gather, blocking out the too-bright midmorning sky, as Thor roars in rage and hunts through the streets of this insignificant mortal village for some target to strike out at. Betrayed, _lied to_ , he should have known better! He tried to be kind, he tried to think well of his treacherous little brother, granting him another chance, and Loki has thrown it all back in his face, _using_ him! And Loki wonders why he is not trusted!

Let him wail once more that he is treated ill by the court, or by his own brother, and Thor will feed him this latest trick in a single mouthful; let him choke on it and be silent.

The lingering ache from last night's ale is faded now, burnt away beneath anger and the charged air of lightning's first taste.

"Where are you going?" Jane cries out from behind him. She's running to keep up, and still unable to match his strides. Her friends hasten in her wake. "He's not here, there's no one to be mad at –"

"You are wrong," he growls, not looking back. "I trust that you and yours were deceived. But _he_ was not."

Thor is willing to destroy every half-rotted and unsteady building that stands in his way to find his brother's companion. His master is fled beyond Thor's reach for the moment, but Thor knows too well where Loki has gone, and there is nowhere on Asgard his brother can evade him. That is a promise. But he will know the shape of this plot _first_ , and who better to demand answers from than Loki's pet mortal?

He _wants_ to destroy something, but there proves no need. Tony Stark is easy to find.

The man is outside and waiting, slumped in a chair at a small table. A canopy once blue, now faded near to white, shades the porch he rests upon, the door leading into the house behind him left ajar as if he has forgotten to close it. As Thor storms towards him, every step a kick against the dusty soil of this world, the mortal looks up, but his eyes fail to focus and his head wavers.

Another step, and Thor catches the sharp reek of strong alcohol, carried on the prowling winds that await their prince's command. It bites into his nose like a small rodent, shocking in its aggression rather than dangerous, however keen its teeth.

Stark's eyes, dulled with drink, roll back and forth as if the world around him is shifting, and finally settle on Thor. He's tilted sideways in his chair – a little further and he will fall – and the hand visible on the table clutches a glass of clear liquid like a lifeline. The bottle on the table, fallen on its side, is empty.

"Mornin'," he slurs, and lifts the glass in a mocking, despairing toast.

He's quick enough to pull it away when Thor leaps to the porch in a single step. The liquid sloshes as Stark cradles it against his chest, clicking slightly against that talisman beneath his shirt.

"Where is he?" Thor demands.

The man snorts, looking up in the broad direction of the Asgardian prince looming over him. "Gone," he says simply, voice bereft. "Back to Asgard in your place, with your face. But you knew that."

Snarling the accusation, Thor growls, "You helped him trick me!" He manages to control the urge to stomp a boot down in anger; Midgard is a _fragile_ world, this is farce enough already without him shattering the boards beneath his own feet. And further humiliation waits for him on Asgard; he has failed! The All-Father commanded him to find Loki and _not_ return with him, and instead Thor let his brother trick him, believed in the pretended surrender and the false hospitality and the long night of comradely talk much fortified with strong wine.

Thor believed there none remaining, but there must have been some, because with the fearlessness of a drunkard, Stark smiles lopsidedly and answers, "Yep. And boy, did you ever fall for it."

Jane and Erik and Darcy have caught up with him now, and Thor burns with embarrassment under their eyes, shocked and wide as they turn from Stark as he sips carelessly from his glass to Thor as he clenches his hands into fists and lashes out.

"And he has _left_ you," Thor says.

Crueler than a punch; Stark flinches.

Thor does not understand why Jane does too, crying out quietly, "Oh, that's not fair –", so he ignores her. Yes, Loki has charmed this man, doubtless told him pretty lies and made-believe that _he_ was the one wronged; spun him some story and pretended that every word was true, but that seduction excuses nothing. Thor is only making him see the truth laid out so clearly before his eyes, hazy as they are.

With a grimace, Stark mutters, "I know." He lifts the glass, sloshing the drink back and forth; a gust of wind blows across him, and even Thor, veteran of many feasts on Asgard, grimaces at the stench. Strong, for a mortal, even if he is using that strength only to become as drunk as possible and stay that way; Loki must have enjoyed this man greatly. "Ta da," he adds despondently.

The words are strange but the tone is familiar, and Thor steps backward and shakes his head in disgust. "You knew he would. And yet you aided him. Why?"

Off on his left, Darcy makes a small, cringing noise and asks, "Don't you know? Is that, like, not okay or something?" Erik audibly shushes her, and out of the corner of his eye, Thor sees him pull his young friend away, a hand over Darcy's mouth. This, Thor regrets slightly; he means _them_ no harm.

His concern is Stark, Loki's accomplice, who stares back at him flatly, toasts him with a halfhearted sneer, and says only, "Guess."

But Thor has had enough of guessing games: enough of this world where _nothing_ is as it seems and nothing makes any sense, where he has been forbidden to act as he pleases by mortals who have no _right_ to command him so. He has been dragged across days of travel to be lied to and used, and he has failed in the mission his father entrusted him with; he will lose the command of Alfheim for this, if he truly cannot even manage his little brother! He will be _humiliated_ before all Asgard: the people who should look to him as their future king will instead laugh behind their hands and say that he is no true warrior, that he is nothing but a fool –

He must begin to set things right somewhere, and so he strikes out at the easiest target.

A bare moment before his fist closes on Stark's shirt, he hears Erik's shout of, "Wait, careful –!" He registers movement, the muscles in Stark's shoulder flexing as he snaps his other hand up.

And light and force erupt in his face in a single blinding flash.

For the second time in two days, Thor finds himself slammed to the ground, feeling dust and grit grind beneath his shoulders and all other thought wiped from his skull. The glaring sun above is hidden by the thunderclouds that have tracked his steps since he realized the thrust of Loki's scheme, but now it is as if those clouds have broken and channeled the light directly into his eyes; dazed sparks float across the world. Mjolnir is still clutched in his left hand, but the moments between reaching for Stark and ending up here are lost.

At a loss – but angrier than ever – he sits up, shakes his head for a moment to clear the bewilderment from it, and stares.

He has been thrown backwards a good dozen paces, and Stark is on his feet, eyes sharp and focused, blazing in the light shining from his palm. His hand up to his elbow is enclosed within a gleaming metal gauntlet, as red as Thor's own cloak. The man's jaw is set, raised confidently, and a smirk plays around the edges of his mouth.

"Don't you fucking touch me," Stark commands, every word clearly spoken in the sudden silence.

Thor barely sees the gaping faces of his human guides. Let them watch, let them see him make this fight his own, for a fight is what Stark is offering. Thor can scarcely comprehend it, but he will not refuse this gift; the rage boiling within him like a storm on the sea howls to be set loose. Fool! The man is no warrior! He is only a Midgardian, a mortal – how can he imagine to fight a prince of Asgard? And a smith, at that – a maker of things and weapons, not a fighter. Unless Loki had lied about that as well, but Jane had said that Stark was the one to create or obtain her machines to track the Bifrost…

Nothing here makes any sense, and the confusion only makes Thor angrier. It is as if a squirrel had attacked a hawk. Maybe in a moment of surprise it will draw a little blood, but this can only end one way.

As he stares, and Stark glares back at him, energy snapping from his outstretched hand, a small voice breaks the charged silence.

"This is water," Darcy says in surprise, dabbling a finger in Stark's discarded glass and tasting it.

The man laughs, not a drunk's gurgle but bright and sober. "Yeah," he says over his shoulder merrily, without taking his eyes off Thor as he rolls back to his feet. "There's a puddle of rotgut under the table. Worst bottle I could find on short notice, but Mercury's a military base. Someone always has a still. Really stinks, doesn't it?"

Thor remembers that smell now; he remembers drinking some of it last night, and now he suspects that he was the _only_ one to do so. At the time, he'd thought Loki was matching every drink of his with one of his own, but Thor really cannot trust his illusionist brother with anything, can he?

He only has time for a moment of chagrin, because Stark advances on him, marching down from the porch with a warrior's confidence, and the man clenches that armored hand and slams it against his breastbone and the talisman shining there.

Energy ripples around him, magic familiar to every warrior of Asgard, and Thor snarls as he recognizes it, shifting Mjolnir in his hand. Richly red metal plates, accented with gold, materialize from the air, locking into place around Stark and moving with him, girding him in armor that conceals his mortal form. It flows over him like a tide, solidifying into something as covering as a ship's hull; sketched runes gleam briefly, scattered hastily across its surface, then fade, their work done. A matching weapon settles into the palm of Stark's other hand, visible as he raises that hand and then closes it too into a fist, snapping it down to point directly at Thor. His face vanishes beneath a smooth, expressionless mask, eyes glowing; the light in his chest shines like a star fanned to life.

Within three steps, man has vanished within the machine called into existence from magic.

Against his will, Thor takes a confused pace backwards: at a loss, but not for long.

"Okay, Conan," Stark says bafflingly, voice turned metallic and echoing as the armor speaks for him. "You want to play? Bring it on."

A challenge after all! At last, something he understands, something he can _fight_ , and Thor does not hide the satisfaction in his voice as he rumbles, "You fled while I battled Loki, and still you believe you can meet me in combat? I look forward to teaching you your error."

Stark laughs; the armor makes it a rattle. "Yeah, you're the big tough warrior. You realize Loki let you win so you'd let your guard down, right?" Power blazes in his raised hands, and he adds, "My turn."

* * *

Odin All-Father, King of Asgard, does not let his scowl show on his face as his rebellious son steps backwards with a mocking half-bow, eyes drawn away by the everyday sight of the sparring yard, and the graven columns of the palace all around, and the flight of common ravens erupting from a distant bell tower, claws striking barely audible blows as they attack it and each other. He notes the triumphant smirk on Loki's face, his trickster child proud of his defiance, but also the delight that waits behind it. All Loki's attention should be on his king and father, who has the power to cast him down again and punish him. But even Odin's still-unlevied wrath cannot hold his gaze, not in the face of his desire for the only home he has ever known and loved.

He remembers Loki younger, when his son was still a child, and would laugh aloud at the use of his magic for then-harmless mischief, spinning about in giggling joy until his mother swept him up into her arms before he could fall. Sometimes Frigga would laugh with him, weaving her spells into her son's, the two of them as often startled by the result as satisfied. Odin would watch them, uncertain how they could find such joy in disrupting things for so little purpose, and helpless to answer the child the few times Loki ran to him, instead. From his father, Loki had learned instead to hide his true feelings, to guard his tongue and his eyes.

He has never understood Loki, and this is, perhaps, the problem. If Loki would only be what he was supposed to –!

But then, it is all for the better that he is not. For deep in the past there lurks the shadow of Odin's first response to the infant in his hands, impulses he has believed slain and burnt long since.

He does not regret the choice he made that day. How could he? But on occasion, when Loki moves in opposition to his will – and this becomes more common, of late – he remembers the fear.

The near-darkness of war-torn Jotunheim, the cold leaching into every thumbprint of his flesh only to be beaten back by the fervid heat of battle and bloodshed, the exhaustion waiting to strike like a serpent nestled in his vitals, all overlaid with the sharp smell of giants' blood on his hands and armor, scorched across Gungnir's shaft as he planted the spear in the ice and reached out, and then –

Mad, to fear an infant, even a giant's runt. For Laufey's it was, plain to see. Odin had not fought the Frost Giants so long without learning to recognize the patterns etched across their frozen skin; they wear their bloodlines on their hide, and Asgard's King and Jotunheim's had met in battle many times, each unable to kill the other. He had known the ridges of Laufey's teeth and the precise shade of his eyes as well as his wife's face, by then.

But Asgard's forces were victorious at last, with Odin leading the charge, agonized fire burning within his skull where once an eye had rested. He had sacrificed it for knowledge, foresight to anticipate the enemy's movements and the spells to hold their ice at bay, fortifying his warriors against their touch that shatters flesh. Knowledge had tipped the battle in their favor, and they had fought their way into the very heart of Jotunheim; not long before, Laufey himself had fallen to the ice at Odin's feet, defeated. The King of the ice had fled, and his warriors with him, leaving Asgard's soldiers to destroy what they could of his realm in retribution for their dead.

Those who remained had been slaughtered, and it had been with fresh blood on his hands that Odin had stepped further into the grotto.

He had been resolved only to _end_ this war, beyond any chance of Jotunheim ever rising again. He would strike them such a blow that they would not recover within his son's lifetime. Ironic that death would be his gift to his firstborn child, so that Thor would never bear the weight of such slaughter.

It was with sons on his mind that he had seen the infant cradled in the ice, stirring restlessly; with resignation, rather than wrath, he had picked it up. He would take no joy in slaughtering Laufey's whelp, but it would be quick, and it had to be done.

And then the boy-child had yawned, and blinked up at him, and squirmed into the warmth of his bloody hands, and the blue of all Jotuns had faded from its skin. Red eyes had turned to cloudy blue-green, its bloodlines had wiped themselves away, the thickset hands and stubbly ice-claws had turned child-chubby and soft. Between one heartbeat and the next, the Jotun runt in his hands had become an Aesir infant, smooth skin pale in the thin light through the ice, new-grown fluff of hair dark.

Odin had stepped over and upon so many corpses for this victory, but only then had the serpent in his guts coiled and struck.

A _shapeshifter._ Laufey's son was a natural-born shapeshifter. With his heart freezing within him in horror, Odin had offered thanks to the empty sky like a terrified Midgardian that he had come here. For a moment, he had been eager to slay the creature, for a shapeshifter, grown and trained, would be an astonishing weapon. Just an infant, it could not be old enough to understand the man who held it, much less plot out how to change so entirely, but the mimicry had already been perfect.

One day, if Odin let the child live, Laufey would be able to put a spy or an assassin into any court or village in the Realms.

On the heels of that thought had come a very similar one.

One day, if Odin let the child live…why not _him_?

He did not have to murder an infant to deprive Laufey of his weapon; Odin could take the little shifter from his enemy and train him to be _Asgard's_ hunter. He could hold Laufey's heir in the palm of his hand as a hostage, or a puppet ruler one day, and until then, turn the child's power to his own uses.

Such had been his thoughts over the drowsing baby in his hands, and such had been his plans as he had smuggled the infant back to Asgard, and thus had he presented both plans and baby to his wife as she returned from her own arm of their campaign to end the war her husband had inherited.

But he had reckoned without Frigga.

"Don't be absurd," she'd said at once, taking the – lightly drugged, for how was Odin to explain a crying child to his soldiers? – baby from his hands and cradling it. "He's only a baby, my love. He doesn't know anything about war, he's too young to remember. He's younger than Thor, and your son has yet to remember that he has two hands, some days."

"My son?" Odin had grumbled without venom.

She'd smiled at him, and he'd been filled with love for this woman; he had yet to learn all the ways in which they were matched. "Our son, then. And this little one, too, if I can make the court believe." And she had refused to hear any objection.

"I can – _we_ can, my love – raise him to be more."

So she had sworn, and so Loptr had become Loki. And so Odin had acquired a second son, and Thor a brother. And so he had scowled and kept his own counsel, privately believing that blood would tell, that Laufey's spawn would grow up rabid and brutal, that they would have to control the child with a whip and a bridle.

But instead _Frigga's_ son had grown up clever and charming and mischievous, often too creative for his own good, tagging around at Thor's heels wide-eyed and adoring, but strong-willed and ever-ready to push back when Thor demanded too much of him. As he grew under Odin's softening but wary eye, his father had not failed to notice the undercurrent of resentment that Loki cultivated in Thor's shadow like some sort of twisted plant, but subtly, bitterly, carefully.

It had taken him a long time to see beyond the monster he had imagined. He believes he has learned to love his younger son no less than his elder, but sometimes… Perhaps he never truly has. Perhaps he will always see the blood Loptr would have shed, evaporating from Loki's footprints.

It is unjust of him, but he has not held the throne of Asgard for over a millennium by lowering his guard.

And he was right, after all. A true shapeshifter would be – and has been – an unparalleled weapon. He is irked to have it turned against him so, but not surprised, for he has never been able to control Loki as he had once imagined he might. He left the whip too late; now his son would snap the end of it from the air in lion's jaws and pull it from his hand.

"Loki," he says only, showing and saying none of the aggravation that nips at him as his younger son prowls the edges of the courtyard, trailing his fingers against the wall. He smiles in mischievous pleasure up at the sun as he breathes in the scents of the palace and the city and the encircling ocean beyond.

"Father," Loki replies, grinning back over his shoulder mockingly, as casually as if he had only emerged from Kalasin's library trailing her curses for moving her tomes, or strolled up from the kitchens licking some brew of Gefion's from his fingers. He stands as easily as if he had been up to nothing more than brushing out Sleipnir's mane, chirping to the horse as if it could reply to him, or escaping Ran's fury for capsizing another of her boats in the harbor. If Odin knew no better, Thor might be only a measure behind his brother, wringing seawater from his hair.

"I hear your war goes poorly." Loki laughs. "Of course, you've put Thor to a task requiring some intelligence."

With all the patience he can muster, Odin replies, " _Your_ war."

It is patience Loki does not share, and at once his son turns to face him, closing some of the distance in two quick strides, and snaps, "Then why will you not let me fight it?"

* * *

Thor leaps at him, hammer raised, yelling some Asgardian battle cry, and Tony shoots him straight in the chest with the missile unfolding from his wrist. The instant it's away, he kicks in the repulsors and streaks upward; the air flowing across the exterior of the suit might as well be across his own skin, and he feels goosebumps of pure pleasure erupt up and down his arms. He doesn't let the flare of explosives throw him off, balancing easily on the stabilizers and tuning the HUD to hypersensitivity with a flick of his eyes. If Thor thinks he can fight Tony's tech, he's gonna have to fight all of it. He's fighting JARVIS' reflexes, too, and Tony will bet on his AI every time.

The explosion doesn't even slow Thor down, but at least his first strike misses, that massive hammer hissing through the patch of air Tony's not inhabiting any more. And man, Tony's tempted to grab a screenshot of the look on Thor's face when he glances up and sees Iron Man in flight, right before Tony hits him with another blast from the hand repulsor.

He shakes it off faster this time, raising Mjolnir as a block. The energy splashes off the magic hammer like water, and Tony stays on the move, circling and weaving and sniping at him from all angles. Yeah, fine, whatever, Thor blocks most of his shots and shrugs away the ones that connect – that first sucker punch really drained it – but Tony's been looking for something to punch since his phone went off two mornings ago, and under cover of flashes and biting lasers, it feels _really_ good to dive from the sky in a flat-out collision course with the furious Asgardian prince.

Tony's armored shoulder hits Thor's chest, and for an instant they both soar, but a sharp jerk is Thor's hand wrapped around his forearm, pushing him away just far enough for Thor to bring up a foot and deliver a powerful kick to his stomach.

The armor takes the brunt of it, but Tony's _never_ getting over how strong Asgardians are. Panting and wincing, just a bit, he withdraws into a wary hover and watches from above as – dammit, he'd hoped for a dug-out furrow worthy of a UFO crash in the unpaved street, but instead Thor has that hammer spinning around like a fan. Somehow it keeps him aloft until he can set his feet to the ground again.

"Freakin' _magic_ ," Tony complains aloud, and Thor growls up at him and slings the magic hammer at him faster than Tony can blink.

Talk about acceleration – Tony could swear that he hears the crack of a sonic boom _after_ the suit has juked aside without command from the man within it, Mjolnir missing him by a hairsbreadth. Close call, too close, but Tony was warned, he's trained for this, Loki has conjured past battles for him into the theater of their sparring room. Before the return strike can hit like a hammer-shaped boomerang, he flicks his hands out and jukes away as drunkenly as he'd been pretending to be.

 _Damn_ , the look of surprise on Thor's face as some inoffensive, harmless, weepy _mortal_ knocked him on his ass had been fantastic. And it had only gotten better as he'd watched Tony's armor lock into place around him, materializing out of thin air and the eye-watering designs Loki had etched into it, cradling gently the same gauntlet that, not two hours before, had slammed into his jaw.

"Just isn't your day, is it?" Tony taunts him. This isn't really part of Loki's plan. This is all for Tony – and it's not (just) a well-deserved kicking; he's making a _point_ here. "Your brother gets the drop on you, leaves you chasing your tail, and now you can't even catch a Midgardian. Some warrior you are."

"You _dare!_ " Thor snarls, hammer gripped in his hand again. "Your master incites you to treason and abandons you to your fate at my hands, and still you fight for him? What is that device, to counterfeit yourself a warrior?"

Tony blows him a raspberry; through the speakers, it sounds _hilarious_ , he should do that _all the freakin' time._ "Little bit of human magic. Or as we call it, technology." Alerts go off in the HUD as the motion analysis spots Thor readying to leap at him again, and Tony adds, "In other words, welcome to Earth, your princeliness. Meet Iron Man," and triggers the flares.

Four dozen tiny explosions erupt around Thor like really, _really_ nasty wasps, keeping him very busy swatting them away while Tony keeps an eye on the power levels and waits. Such a lovely, easy target, hanging here in the sky. Forget that your very tricky brother and I have been working together. Forget that he _knows_ you. Get mad. Forget that I've obviously trained to fight you. C'mon, sucker, take the bait…

Even as the last flares go off, Thor leaps, howling furiously, hammer raised, but not to swing down. Instead, it carries him higher – _flight_ , check, but two can play that game and will – and towards the clouds that have been building above Mercury like the world's most epic mood ring.

All red and gold and metal and strength against the thick grey clouds, Thor doesn't even flinch as a bolt of lightning slams down out of those clouds and unerringly into Mjolnir, sparks crackling around his body without touching or burning him. From within that – actually really impressive – living armor, he points the hammer straight at Tony.

Iron Man is fast, but he can't dodge _lightning._

Pure heat and force and power slam into him, knocking Iron Man from the sky, and for less than a second, he's locked within a network of lethal charges like a cage, jumping from point to point and striking eagerly at so lovely a conductor as all that metal.

Everything screams, and Tony goes blind and deaf in the split second where his life hangs on if he did the math right, and the jolt of adrenaline is so strong that, in that instant, the only sensation reminding him he still has a body is the taste of it under his tongue.

When he can see again, he feels his body crouching on the ground, head down as the visual circuits reload, static roaring in his ears, the keen taste of ozone so strong he may never smell anything else again. As the systems reboot, he can hear stone crumbling, wood snapping and tearing, the too-close hum of the suit's hydraulics as they take the full weight off his shoulders again, and somewhere further away, a cry.

Right. Civilians. Mystery Inc. Good thing Thor isn't mad at them; Tony isn't sure he could protect them and hold his ground at the same time. As it is, he realizes, he's been smashed down into a building. That's what's crumpling around him, debris everywhere. He's good, but Thor's _amazing_.

And still not a patch on his brother; Tony will _still_ take wit and mischief and the razor's edge.

Some of the debris from the building is on his back, weighing him down, but that's abruptly no problem, because holy _shit_ , he did his math right, and the available power readings are five times higher than maximum.

So he stays low, and plays dead, or at least down. So he watches as Thor touches down, absurdly lightly, and strides over to him ready to deliver the finishing blow.

At which point Tony sits back on his heels and fires off all the repulsors at once, feet stabilizing him – equal and opposite – and hands and chest unit sending Thor flying into the building across the way. Payback.

"Thanks for the recharge, Hagar," Tony can't resist sassing.

Thor scrambles back to his feet and blurts out, "Impossible!" and it's all Tony can do not to screech _"Inconceivable!"_ back at him.

"Loki's my friend, by the way," Tony says instead. _Master_ , like hell. Loki may call him _pet,_ but it's fondness, not dominance. Damn, now Tony really wants to have that fight, just for the adrenaline rush, wants to see Loki try it and see how that might play out – _god_ , they'd have fun.

"And he still drives me insane, and you are, if anything, worse. Loki had years to learn better. You, I'm gonna have to fast-track." He's not even stalling Thor. Tony's just kicking him until he gets a clue.

He might as well not be talking, for all Thor hears. The Asgardian prince, angry and baffled, is still wrapped up in an incredulous world of his own. "But you are mortal, and a smith! How can you stand and fight me still?"

Tony laughs aloud. "How can you be Loki's brother, and still not understand? People aren't just one thing!"

Pure incomprehension is still painted across Thor's face, and Tony marches towards him, drawing back a fist. "I am so – damn – sick – of that Asgardian arrogance!" he snarls, jabbing out in a classic boxing maneuver. Happy would be so proud. "Just because you live longer, and you've got that super-strength, and you're centuries ahead of us, that doesn't give you the right to act like you're gods!"

None of the punches hit, but then Tony didn't expect them to. He can't go hand-to-hand with this guy. Well, he couldn't go hand-to-hand with Stane's monster machine, either; he'd needed an ace up his sleeve. Keep moving, Stark!

But this time when he darts away, Thor comes after him, _actually flying_ , and Tony finds himself playing cat-and-mouse among the thankfully expendable buildings of Mercury. Dammit, he hopes the base commander took his advice and kept everyone underground today too.

Dammit _all_ , she didn't! There are people in the streets, sheltering behind buildings and cars, handguns drawn and tracking both fliers. Tony can only notice them in passing, and it's only as he's dodging the wreckage of a portable, all but hugging the ground and then barrel-rolling away before Thor can tackle him to the earth, that he realizes the newcomers weren't in military fatigues, or the casual gear of Mercury's civilian population.

They'd mostly been wearing suits, except for that one guy in something sleeveless. Whatever. And some of those cars are painfully-clichéd black SUVs.

Tony's not stupid. Cavalry's here. _Finally._ It's not like he called them an _hour ago_ , or anything. Boy, wasn't Agent annoyed when Tony hung up on him.

Thor closes in on him enough to clip Tony's left hand – and the flight stabilizer – with Mjolnir, and Tony winces as he feels bones grind within the armor, even as he fights for balance with only one working hand. Settling to the ground as Thor does the same, he volleys off, "Spoiled brat! And this is _me_ saying that! You think it's all about you, like humans don't even matter. Well, we're here too! And from where I'm standing –" He grins cockily, knowing Thor can't see it and not caring. "– this human is kicking your ass."

"You aided Loki in treason," Thor growls doggedly, golden retriever after a duck that won't stay shot. "You conspired against Asgard –"

"You mean we made you look stupid," Tony counters.

Thor slams Mjolnir into the ground, and Tony takes off into a hover before it can shake him off his feet; all around the area map in the corner of his vision, he sees points of light scatter and regroup. "I am a prince of Asgard –"

This guy is not getting it; well, is Tony surprised? "Not here!" he shouts, and Thor's jaw clicks shut in surprise. Finally.

"On this world, you are not a prince," Tony snaps at him. "You may have powers we don't, but you are not a god. You don't have your friends, or your armies, or your rainbow bridge ready to beam you out."

…which evidently Thor hadn't figured out yet, because he startles and looks up at the still-swirling cloud layer. But before he can try anything, Tony barrels on, "We've never bowed to your king, or to you, not in a thousand years. You are a _person_ , and so are we, and right now, as you are, you are less prepared for this world than any of us!"

 _You have to figure it out; I have to_ make _you figure it out. Or one day, you'll go looking for a war you can win, and if you take aim at Earth…_

The first time they'd sparred, when Tony had first learned what kind of a punch Asgardians can pack, Loki had said that the last time his people had noticed Earth, humans hadn't been interesting enough to fight with. But he'd also said that since then, humanity had come so far.

Tony can't allow Thor to look at Earth and think it's an easy target. Iron Man needs to make a good – or at least a _lasting_ – impression on this war-happy prince from the stars, has to make Thor _respect_ what humanity has become.

"You lie," Thor says, and shouts, "Heimdall! To me!"

Tony stands back – on the ground again, on the same street they'd started from; proximity sensors have tagged Mystery Inc., still watching and probably not happy, plus at least three people now protecting them – and lets him find out the hard way that nothing is going to happen.

"Heimdall?" Thor shouts again, more tentatively, and then an alarmed, "Heimdall!"

While he's distracted, Tony steps in and just slugs him. Hell, it had worked well enough on Loki. "Won't work," he says, backing away to a safe distance and glancing at the helmet release as Thor staggers. A risk, but a calculated one. He's got Thor trying to run, or at least calling for help, so maybe it's time to show his face again.

Thor demands, "What have you done?"

Raising his left hand, but with the repulsor turned away, Tony taps his own – ow, probably broken – wrist. "Did you really think that was just a bit of flash?"

The double-take is _fabulous_ , and Thor immediately snatches at the totally forgettable strip of magicked leather keeping him invisible to Asgard's chief voyeur and starts trying to pull it off. It's a tiny little thing, really, but it resists all the muscles Thor can bring to bear; it's been locked on from the first moment Loki got eyes on Thor.

Such an easy target, distracted like that. Somehow Tony refrains from punching him again. "Nothin' doin', pal," he drawls. "You're the one trapped here now, and you're not going back until _Loki_ decides to let you."

Even Thor can spot the irony in that, and it's enough to make him stop and try to glare Tony into submission. If he'd started with that, it might have worked better, but it's a pale threat after the super-hammer and the Pikachu God showcase. Of course, Tony's been putting up with more than his share of Asgardian snobbery for years now. He's worked up an immunity.

"My people will come for me," Thor threatens. "I command armies!"

Tony grins at him, and the expression is all his own. Thor thinks he can bluff, huh? He really doesn't know who he's gambling with, does he?

"Oh yeah," he says, deliberately casual. "That war you've got going on. Sounded like you were losing."

And in a blink, he goes from teasing to dead serious. "You really want to start a second one?"

* * *

That rod Loki is carrying so idly, snapped down against his thigh so that Odin cannot watch both his son's face and his son's weapon, is something he has not seen before, and he is uncertain to its purpose. The power laid into it, nearly strong enough to match Mjolnir's presence, hums in an intricate web, but the tangles are a deception, for the flow is smooth and even and confident. It does not unnerve him – within his own castle, facing his own son, with his heart beating steadily within his chest, Odin has nothing to fear. They are, as yet, sparring only with words, and the instant Odin decides he tires of it, he will cease humoring Loki's impudence in returning here.

"You are losing Alfheim," Loki snaps, fingers tightening against his device. "Thor doesn't realize what he's saying, but he told me of it freely enough, believing himself bragging of his victories. He thinks he's doing flawless work, that it's all going to sort itself out, and until then he need do nothing but slay everything in his path."

He paces aside angrily, not turning his back on his father for a moment, and shakes his head in disgust. "But you know better, don't you? If I could tell the shape of the entire war from a single drunken evening –"

"We will regain control of Alfheim," is the only answer Odin offers, his voice cold. All wars go badly; his sons know nothing of true war. Their battles have all been skirmishes, indulgences, the high spirits of young warriors clashing with other young warriors from other Realms. They have hunted monsters and bandits. They have started and pursued quarrels and defended themselves from those who find themselves insulted. War requires time, and patience, and the sure knowledge of victory; on such rocks do enemy forces break.

Loki counters, "Not without me. What did you send me there for in the first place, if not to win just this war? And then you _throw me away!_ "

True, that the knowledge Loki had gathered by the time he himself was caught up in Alfheim's feuds would have aided the early days of the war. Asgard's forces had tried to restore order and found they did not know what order had held sway before. What they attempted to build turned on them; those allies they attempted to enlist betrayed them.

But Loki had disobeyed his king; had taken matters into his own hands and acted to destabilize a Realm already out of balance. He had taken everything on himself and struck out in anger, and it was that temper of Loki's that Odin had finally tired of. What use the knowledge his son had gathered in his spying, if on an impulse, Loki would leap and disrupt it all? How could Odin plan a war he had not wanted, but could not ignore, with his own son the worst-offending random factor of them all?

No. Better to send Loki away, and restore some measure of order in his absence, for assuredly Loki would not let things be if commanded to. That, he had proven too clearly. When all was settled, his younger son's love for meddling in the affairs he ensnares himself in would be less of a danger.

Better to set him aside, rather than attempt to rein in Alfheim and Loki both at once; his son would be at that world's throat in moments, at cross-purposes to any force Odin might send.

Now years of war have passed, and anything Loki might have learned has long since been overwritten by soldiers' boots and sword wounds.

"What do you propose?" Odin asks regardless, and adds with little patience, "Again I must repeat myself, and I tire of it. What do you _want,_ Loki?"

His son's expression wavers, then fixes back into the haughty, smug smirk that is all Loki wishes to show him, as if pretending he has any power here will make it so. "Let me come home," Loki says, without a trace of sarcasm in his voice, "and I'll fix your war for you."

A ready enough exchange, but Odin has doubts. "As simply as that?"

As he'd expected, Loki snorts dismissively. He turns away and leaps to the edge of the stair, seating himself upon the ledge and laying his bespelled weapon by his hand like a resting sword. "Of course not," he says.

Still on guard, Odin nods, unsurprised. Of course Loki would bargain. Loki always will, if he can, and then is the time to be wary; the name _Silvertongue_ has been well earned. But Odin will hear him, at least. "So you have conditions."

"Three."

Curiosity sparks across his mood of flat resignation like stars in a darkening sky, but ire still burns on the horizon, and the stars cower back from that sullen sun. "You will bargain with Asgard's safety, then?" Odin says scornfully. "Perhaps even with your brother's life?"

Perhaps Loki has survived the ever-changing Realm of Midgard unharmed, but Odin has no such confidence in Thor's ability to avoid a battle, should mortals fear him rather than revere him. There has never been _any_ telling how Midgardians will respond to the Aesir. Thor would slay many, but bees can kill a bear, should enough of them fly to the attack.

Loki only smiles, tapping his fingers against his weapon, which Odin finds very irksome. That he has still offered no overt threat protects him, for now.

"Very well," he says gruffly. "What will it cost me, then, to have my war leader returned?"

* * *

Thor looks at Tony like he's completely lost it, and Tony smirks back at him with a confidence that…yeah, actually, he does feel. He's Tony freakin' Stark, Iron Man and total badass, and he's _got_ this.

"What are you talking about?" Thor demands.

"Asgard doesn't have a clue where you are," Tony explains, even if he's stretching the truth a bit. Someone up there has to be not completely stupid, and it wouldn't take more than one to realize that the real Thor is somewhere near where they'd picked up the fake one. But that's totally not the point. "Yeah, sure, your people can come get you. But they'll have to find you first."

He clenches his fists – ow again – feeling the repulsors burning against his palms. _Fuck_ , the lightning had been one hell of a jolt, and running on 500-percent power had been glorious, but he's in no great hurry to go flying around in thunderstorms. Or pick more fights with Thor than he has to. "And how many Asgardians do you think we'll stand for, marching across our planet? Blundering around and acting like they own the place, waving swords in people's faces, getting mad when people laugh at them for sounding like a Shakespeare festival. And yeah, I know, Aesir are tough. But you know the great thing about technology like this?"

Tony taps one finger on his own chest, right above the arc reactor. Funny how when it's running the suit, it feels totally _right_ to have it there. He doesn't wait for Thor to guess, because if he's got Thor listening, he's going to run with that.

"It's replicable. How many more of these suits do you think I have? You called me a smith. How many more do you think I can make?"

Defensively – _score!_ – Thor eyes the Iron Man suit, Tony's expression, the suit again. "You would teach others to fight us, for treading upon your world?" he asks.

"From where I'm standing, I'd call that trespassing. It's our planet, not yours."

Thor shakes his head. "I was brought here concealed, for fear that I would frighten your people though I offered no threat. I do not think many would take up arms against us."

But he's _thinking_ about it. Now all Tony has to do is sell it. And he's got that killer ace.

"Yeah? Look around you," he suggests.

Tony looks too, and grins like a bastard.

About thirty, maybe three dozen men and women in suits crouch in the shelter of black SUVs and under the cover of still-standing buildings, guns drawn and pointed at the alien warrior trying to make the world's most media-happy superhero into a charred pancake. Their eyes are wide but their hands are steady; a couple have their hands to their ears and Tony can see their lips moving, probably keeping potential reinforcements up to speed, or maybe calling in an air strike, if they've decided to bring bigger guns to this party.

On the porch, Natasha Romanoff and two women Tony doesn't know, one level-eyed and Asian and the other blond and raring to hit something, are keeping Jane, Erik, and Darcy out of the fight. The latter three don't look happy, except maybe Darcy, who has her own hand over her mouth and is just staring like it's a great show. Romanoff has something in her hands that's sparking, little blue flickers like ghosts of Thor's lightning, ready to throw. She's wearing that catsuit in the Nevada heat and she _still_ looks wonderful.

Agent Coulson, armed and ready for a fight – Tony can tell, because of the Terminator sunglasses – is one of the people standing by a black SUV, but he's not hiding behind it. Just standing there, watching, gun held low, his expression that of mild interest. The man kneeling on the SUV's roof, clearly guarding Coulson, has an actual _bow_ aimed at Thor, an arrow on the string and drawn back to his ear. A tiny red LED blinking from its tip suggests it's no ordinary pointy stick.

They don't stand a chance, if Thor decides to start rampaging through them. But they're here anyway.

"See them? That's humans," Tony says, for _once_ happy that SHIELD is made up of interfering, nosy jackasses who can't keep their fingers out of his business.

Thor hadn't even noticed them, by the way he's looking around, obviously wondering where all these mortals came from, and when. "I don't understand," he says. "Who are they?"

"They," Tony says, "are the people who saw you up on your godliness, throwing lightning bolts and fighting me, and came _towards_ you with _handguns_."

And a hunting bow. You do you, sleeveless guy. Nice biceps.

"Humans. See? So how far do you want to escalate this, big guy?" Tony challenges, ready to leap into battle again if he must. "How much of another war do you want to start today?"

He doesn't get an answer, as Thor looks around and considers his options. So Tony tosses him another way.

"Or, better option."

"I am listening," Thor says finally.

Tony tries not to laugh just yet. Instead, he says, "You could sit down, shut up, and hope your brother loves you more than you deserve."

Several very long seconds pass as Thor takes in all these scared and amazed humans who are ready to fight him anyway, and who have him surrounded. He looks over at where his human friends, the people he promised would come to no harm at his hands, are staring anxiously at him; at Jane, who has her hands in fists, clenched against her heart, who's whispering "C'mon, c'mon, c'mon," audibly. He stares at Tony, who he'd dismissed so completely and who'd proven more dangerous than he could have imagined.

And when Mjolnir slips from his hand, the magic hammer slams solidly into the stirred-up dust of Mercury with a sound like nobody having to die today.

* * *

"Oh, you have your war leader, Father," Loki says, rolling his eyes disrespectfully. "I'm right here."

Odin refuses to give him that ground, even as he condescends to play Loki's game for now. "That has yet to be decided. But I require my eldest son returned to me; what price do you ask for him?"

Loki must have thought this out in advance, Odin is sure of it; his younger son is a schemer. And yet he hesitates.

 _Go on_ , Odin thinks, as he waits. _Ask for the throne. I know you've always wanted it._

 _But you'll never have it, and if I can manage it, you'll never know why._

 _You think you hurt now? You'd never be able to live with the truth. I will spare you that, if I can._

 _Ask. Overstep. Force me to forbid it to you outright. Give me a reason. You always have…_

"Time," says Loki.

It's not what he expected, and Odin feels his unpatched eyebrow rise skeptically. "For?"

"You're thinking of naming one of us as heir at last," Loki explains, bitterness threading its way into his voice, "and by one of us, I mean Thor. It's no great secret you despise me."

It should not hurt, for it is not true; and yet it does, that Loki believes it. "I do not," is all the answer Odin can give him.

"And they call me liar," Loki says as if to himself. To his father, he adds, "Let Thor think he's won and he's every inch a fool. I got past him with a dazed look and a few strong drinks. Can you imagine what sort of chance he'll stand against someone with breasts, who can bat her eyes a bit?"

A shimmer races across him, and Odin forces himself not to recoil, or to turn his back and banish Loki again out of hand, at the sight of the slender woman with _almost_ his son's face, who smiles at him with mock-sweetness, crossing her feet over each other at the ankles in a parody of femininity, and _still_ that unknown weapon distractingly near to her hand.

"Stop that," Odin snaps, glaring. It isn't even the shapeshifting; that was, after all, the gift that saved Loki's life. It was one thing to find his younger child as a wolf cub, playing with Odin's own pack of hunters – even now the wolves adore him. But like this…so _believably_ feminine, as if it were not against the way things are… She is _too like_ Loki, disorienting and so close to right that the _wrongness_ of her is magnified.

"Why?" he – she – asks, too innocent.

"I warned you before –"

She brushes his words away with a light hand. "And you know, you're right," she says, smirking at the bafflement that must be clear to her eyes, for they are _Loki's_ eyes, and Loki tracks confusion like a wolf after blood.

"You don't need a princess." She laughs. "But you don't even need a prince. You need a trickster and a spy and a manipulator, which is to say you need _me._ Because Thor's not ready, and we both know it."

Still struggling with the offense of his son become, however briefly, a daughter he never asked for, Odin retorts, "I suppose you believe you could do better." He begins to tire of this game.

Loki grimaces, turning her face up to the sun. "At so many things."

In Thor's absence, Odin feels compelled to defend him. "Perhaps he's changed."

"I've heard otherwise, from his own account." Between breath drawn in and sigh flown out, the woman is gone, and his son back to his own form as he murmurs to himself, "He was right, though be damned if I'll tell him – you're never going to, are you?"

Odin truly does not understand this question, if question it is. So he ignores it. "The first thing you ask of me is to do nothing. Little enough. And the second?"

Loki folds his arms across his chest, and demands, "I want my Sight back! I need to be able to see the Ways between worlds again!" His patience used up on his own tricks, he does not wait, but leaps down from his perch and closes almost within his father's reach. Odin tracks the snap of magic from his weapon warily as Loki goes on as if anticipating refusal, "I cannot fight this war half-blind! You may be content with it, but I cannot live this way."

Stung, Odin retorts, "I see more than you imagine. Perhaps –" Although somehow he doubts it. "– you could learn to do the same."

"Perhaps you don't know as much as you think you do."

"And the third?" He has promised nothing. "Or will you stand there – in defiance of my command, and do not believe I have forgotten this, Loki – and insult me only to draw out the moments in which you may do so?"

Loki glares back at him furiously, nipping at his lower lip for a moment before glancing away, betraying his own uncertainty. Nevertheless, he answers.

"Whatever you do, you do it to me."

"How do you mean?" Odin must ask.

His son meets his gaze, and says, "There are those on Midgard who aided me in what Thor has doubtless labeled treason, by now. No harm or inconvenience, or any repercussions at all, will come to them."

Letting none of his thoughts show on his face, Odin considers these terms for long moments. If the delay makes Loki nervous – and it does – so be it; his son holds his ground despite clearly longing to step away and pace back and forth, but the magic in that weapon flows placidly still.

"And for these favors," he says at last, "for this price, you will return Thor to Asgard, and Alfheim to stability."

Setting his shoulders as if he were a soldier awaiting a command – presumptuous child – Loki confirms, "Yes."

As bargains go, it is not a poor one, and Odin is inclined to accept it, but not entirely on Loki's terms. If Thor, believing himself the victor, becomes foolish, Loki becomes insufferable. There must be some risk in it, to keep Loki alert. "Will you hazard your freedom on it, then? If you fail, if Alfheim falls, you too shall fall."

Green eyes flash fury; and yet – "I will accept your terms, if you accept mine."

"Then I accept."

In an instant, the anger becomes disbelief, and Loki draws back just slightly, shocked. "What, just like that?" he blurts, all his poise vanishing.

 _Over-clever child; and yet, the lengths to which I must go to_ teach _you anything…_ "And do you know why?" Odin asks, hoping despite hope that the lesson has been not just learned but recognized.

His hopes are in vain, but not dead. "You need me," Loki answers at once, if warily. "You _do,_ you know. _He_ does," and in his voice Odin can hear the child he long since despaired of ever sending back to Jotunheim to take and hold Laufey's throne.

Loki is true to _Asgard_ , and even to his brother, in his own jealous way. To what he imagines this Realm could be; to what he himself still longs to be. He will play with worlds, if given the arena, and it is _that_ , more than anything, that gives Odin pause.

"Yes," he lies. "You are needed here, as you are. That is why."

That is not why he agreed, of course, even if the relief and pride hidden within Loki's triumphant smirk are all too clear – Odin knows his son – at the affirmation and faint praise. But he cannot say that he will let Loki return because Loki had thought of someone other than himself.

Bargaining for his life and his home and his place in the world, Loki had still tried to protect his friend.

But if Odin points this out to him, shows Loki that he has been tricked into something he did not expect in his turn, then Loki will recoil and turn away and deny it all, as he has before.

So let the child think he's won.

* * *

After that, it's cleanup, which is one thing SHIELD is definitely good for. They've got the clearing away debris and the debriefing protocols and the cover stories and the polite threatening of witnesses down.

Turns out, as Tony had suspected, that the superspies had figured out something unearthly was going on a couple months ago, when he'd let Romanoff in right through the front door, and then they'd taken over his house and gotten into his computers. He doesn't keep a whole lot of stuff about Loki on there, but he'd had Jane Foster's file and the search parameters he and JARVIS had used to locate her.

They'd stalked Foster and co., and when Thor touched down, they'd followed along at a distance to see what would happen, with what seems to have been a "watch, but don't engage" policy.

Leaving them conveniently in town when Tony actually needed them for once.

He watches from one of the porch steps, wrinkling his nose at the faded but lingering stench of incredibly bad moonshine, as SHIELD agents…yeah, he's gonna go with _bustle…_ around. He's not part of it. Most of the Iron Man suit is folded back into its suitcase form like good little Transformers tech, but the left gauntlet, still on his hand, is going to take tools to remove; Thor had smashed some important gears and almost definitely Tony's wrist.

Coulson hadn't quite said "Sit. Stay," but it had been implied. Tony continues to be amused that " _You_ made this mess, and now _we_ have to sort it out" can be conveyed with eyebrows alone.

Fortunately for Agent, Tony's done everything on his to-do list for the day, saving the planet from aliens, and all. That's kind of superheroic, right? Although it's a shame that all the good booze is gone. He could use a drink right now.

While strangers dig through parts of his life that are none of their fucking business, and spread all of his secrets out in the harsh desert sun.

Instead he sits and watches as SHIELD goes into mini-raptures over Thor, who's looking somewhat less cowed with all these fanboys and -girls in the making all around, now that they're not pointing guns at him. Tony smirks as Jane gets possessive and Darcy nips past everyone to pat her on the head, which does nothing at all to help.

Any minute now, someone's going to start trying to interrogate him as the mastermind, or at least the _available_ mastermind, of this whole thing. Probably Romanoff. Maybe she'll bring her friend with the archery kit over. He can see them talking together familiarly and is amused that icy Romanoff has a buddy. Great, then Tony can ask Legolas if he really thought he could take on a thunder god with it, or if the guy's just got enough ranks in his bluff that he doesn't actually need combat skills.

That's if he can get a word in past the lecture inevitably coming his way.

Oh well. He's got to have something to fill the time, because all he can do now…

Is hope.

The aftermath of an interplanetary war, which probably isn't going to happen after all, unfolds all around him in this out-of-the-way corner of the world, and Tony closes his eyes and leans back against the next step. The metal beneath his shirt warms against his skin even in the shade.

He's done. It's done. From here, it's out of his hands.

 _Please, Loki_ , he thinks, _please be all right._

 _Come back to me, if you can._

* * *

"Oh," Loki says, some time later, looking up from ruffling the ears of a panting, whining, squirming pack of otherwise dread and fearsome hunting wolves, which had careened yelping through the palace and poured into the courtyard like a living, furry avalanche, tripping over themselves to reacquaint themselves with their master's wayward son.

He smiles like one of them. "There is _one_ more thing…"

* * *

 _To be concluded._

 **Author's Note:** Last chance to send me songs for the "Mirage" soundtrack; a link to the full playlist will be posted in the last chapter.


	19. The Only Game in Town

ON WITH THE SHOW!

* * *

 **Chapter Nineteen: The Only Game in Town**

 _I know it's crooked. But it's the only game in town._

(Attributed to Canada Bill Jones, 1853, as quoted in Neil Gaiman's _American Gods_ )

* * *

Rhodey disbelieves everything.

"So let me get this straight," he says dubiously, tapping a didactic finger against the folding table, one of many SHIELD has set up under generic-looking canopies. Across from him, wrist splinted but still grinning gamely, Tony rolls his eyes, glancing away at the agents all over the place, who are…looking busy, mostly. They've set up their tents rather than using the existing buildings – understandably – and Thor has calmed down enough to actually chat with people, or as close to chatting as alien thunder gods ever get. More than likely, he's just trading war stories with them; Tony's spent most of his life working with the military and he can spot former soldiers, like a good percentage of Thor's audience, in an instant.

And everyone else is…industriously doing nothing, because there's nothing left to do. It's all over but the shouting.

Shouting is coming, and the vultures are circling. At least one of them is a cute redhead, who admittedly _will_ dropkick Tony in painful places if he messes with her…any more than usual.

Tony's not even sure who called Rhodey, but the nearby airstrip is seeing more use today than it has probably over the last year. His oldest friend had marched into town looking like he wanted to pull the remains of his buzz-cut out by the roots, weave it into a rope, and tie Tony to a pole somewhere he can't hurt himself.

Wherever _that_ is. Some basement, maybe, unless they've got a couple of nails and a slide rule lying about. Ooh, and maybe a can of spray paint. Tony can do _bad_ things with pressurized cans, and that's before he gets to the infinite potential of spray paint.

"Your boyfriend," Rhodey goes on, and interrupts himself at once. "What, no objection?"

Tony shrugs. "At this point? Nah." He grimaces at the SHIELD mob, completely sure that between Thor and Mystery Inc., not to mention the lengths that Tony had been willing to go to for Loki – who's still missing, which Tony's trying not to think about – that secret is not just out of the closet but out on a fashion show catwalk.

Apparently Rhodey can look more skeptical. "Okay then. Your boyfriend, the two-bit magician you picked up in Vegas –"

" _Two-bit_?" Tony cuts in, offended on Loki's behalf. "That's like calling me a hack mechanic. You take that back."

He doesn't. Man's going to find ball bearings in all his socks. "– is actually an alien, as in _from another planet_ , where magic works."

"Yep," Tony says, popping the _p_. But Rhodey's not done.

"– who got stuck here –"

Tony grimaces at the memory of the anger and betrayal and homesickness in Loki's eyes, once he'd trusted Tony enough to show him. " _Banished_ might be closer. Not at all happy about it."

"– and when building a…what, a stargate? Seriously, Tony? …didn't work –"

"Blew up. The word you want is definitely _blew up_."

"– he roped you into –"

At this rate, it's going to take Rhodey the rest of the year to finish this sentence, but Tony is fine with that. "I dunno about _roped_ ," he objects mildly. "I kind of volunteered."

But Rhodey talks right over him, determined and looking more exasperated with every word. "– some kind of giant shell game to get _that_ guy here so your magic alien could sneak back home in his place."

Tony waits a few seconds to see if he's done, while Rhodey aims his best _what the fuck, Tony_ expression at him. Tony's seen a lot of those over the years. This is a good one.

"When you say it that way, it sounds crazy," he says finally.

"Seriously?" Rhodey demands. "That's the story you're going with? And is there a way to say it that _isn't_ crazy?"

Tipping his head back as if the answers might be written on the red canvas above, Tony considers and admits, "That's basically it. You should be in town more often, I told Pepper and Happy who Loki really is _months_ ago."

Rhodey looks like he wants to put his head down on the table, very hard. But he doesn't, because one of them has to have some dignity. That was the deal – okay, they were a lot younger and much drunker at the time. Tony had assigned them roles: Rhodey would be the one with dignity, and Tony would be the one who found ways to have fun, and this has mostly stayed intact over the years…much more so than a number of bars, articles of clothing, and vehicles.

"On the other hand," Tony adds, "I'm _never_ bored."

Shaking his head, Rhodey goes on, "And now he's…"

And that kills the mood; Tony feels his expression slam shut, hears the sudden silence radiating out from him, and while the temperature underneath the canopy doesn't really drop, he imagines little icicles forming on the table. "I don't know," is all he can say.

He tries to look anywhere else, but Rhodey asks, "So he's gone?"

…in a voice that might be _disappointed_ , and is definitely disapproving – wow, if Loki doesn't come back, Rhodey might actually hunt him down, shovel at the ready, for upsetting Tony.

Tony doesn't have many close friends, but he has good ones. So to Rhodey, at least, he can say, "I don't _know_ , Rhodey. Anything could have happened. He could be fine, or his dad could have kicked him out again, sent him somewhere else, or locked him up, or…I don't know. Loki didn't know what would happen either."

He hears his voice become a whining protest, and can't work up the effort to care. "But he's been desperate to go home for longer than I've known him, Rhodey. It's what we've been working towards, and I didn't want him to go – you have _no_ idea how much I didn't want that – but he had to try, and what was I supposed to do, stop him? I tried, and… I…I really… Look, he was going to try with or without me, and I wanted to be there right alongside him, you know? How could I _not?_ "

Against his will, his non-immobilized hand comes up, pinching the bridge of his nose as if warding off a headache. Superstition, he knows, but maybe it helps. Not with the important things, though, not against everything that might be happening worlds away, so far out of his reach he doesn't even know how to point in the right direction. They've done everything right, Tony's held up his side of the plan, and now…he _hates_ being this helpless, with so much that he cares about on the line.

" _Come on, you mad bastard," he'd said, sitting on that ratty carpet at Loki's side. "What do you_ want? _"_

 _There had been several long seconds of silence, in which Tony could have sworn he could hear his own heartbeat. It was racing in mingled exhilaration and terror, coming down off the glittering high of yelling at someone – at something – that even now could smash him into the ground and break him with a single hand, and may yet do so._

 _But instead, very gradually, Loki had reached out and taken Tony's hand, holding on hard enough to hurt. But it had been_ good _– he'd torn strips out of something that could tear him apart, and he was getting_ away _with it, and yet hell, he'd hoped to never hit this much of an adrenaline-addled high again._

"Everything _," Loki had said, very nearly a hiss._

 _Tony had grinned with pure relief, leaning his head back against the wall. "Fuck, we were made for each other," he'd said happily. "What do you need from me?"_

 _Finally, Loki had looked up, eyes seeking Tony's like he was locking on a target._

" _Trust me. One more time."_

And Tony is _trying_ , he is trying so hard. He's trusting Loki to be as clever as they both think he is, to have the situation up there under as much control as he needs to, but it's agonizing. The dose of aspirin is nibbling bits off the edges of the pain in his wrist, but there isn't enough in the world for the one deeper within. It's the _not knowing_.

"Are you okay?" Rhodey asks instead, and from the look his friend is giving him, Tony knows that some of that must have shown on his face.

"I _don't know_ ," Tony doesn't quite snap. "I'm dealing. Handling what's in front of me. Walking and talking. You know. Still a bit of the rush from this." He shifts his left wrist and regrets it. "But that could have gone a lot worse."

"Loki taught you how to fight him," Rhodey says with a nod at Thor, as if there were any doubt. He sounds pleased. Maybe no shovels will be involved after all, the next time he and Loki – please, _please_ , a next time – meet.

"Yeah, he knew it was probably coming. Lemme tellya, it's a workout, sparring with him. And I think Big Brother over there could actually be a halfway decent guy, once someone knocks the edges off and he gets a clue. If I could get him to respect me as a warrior – and Earth – we'd be okay. They're such _Klingons_ , Rhodey, you have no idea."

"And you got into a fistfight with one." Rhodey looks like he's got a headache of his own coming on. "You're going to make me old before my time, Tony."

"Sorry."

In a tone of utter resignation, Rhodey deadpans, "No, you're not."

Tony smirks. "No, I'm not."

* * *

After that, he has to explain the whole thing again, except to a tougher audience. Coulson and Romanoff also look like they want to tie him to a pole and leave him there.

"Where do you want me to start?" he tosses off, faking casual. It says something that he'd much rather be here, sparring with SHIELD agents to see how long he can fend them off from all his secrets, than sitting idly somewhere, fretting.

"Let's try from the beginning, please, Mr. Stark," Coulson says politely. That's fake, too.

Tony snorts. "And then go on 'til the end, and then stop? Like I'm Alice. Do I look like Alice to you? Although seriously," he goes off on the first tangent of many, "I feel for the girl. Drawn into a world of magic, with its own logic." He starts to throw his hands into the air overdramatically, before remembering why he can't do that. "All right then. I'm not wearing the dress, though. Light blue's not my color. Hey, if I'm Alice, then who are you?"

Neither of them take the bait, so Tony rolls with it, snapping his fingers at Romanoff. "Red Queen? Surrounded by idiots, chopping off heads? Nah, Alice's cat, whatshername… Far too practical for Wonderland, and everyone there's scared of her?" He'd checked that Loki had read the book – he had – and then realized he should probably read it himself. Loki had reread bits of it over Tony's shoulder late at night, which had been weirdly…ordinary, for them.

Crickets. And Coulson.

"Mr. Stark…"

"Hey, you started it. Anyway, I can't start at the beginning. I wasn't there. I came in later." He hesitates, says _to hell with it_ , and goes ahead anyway. "Also, damn. No one told me the Cheshire Cat would be _hot._ "

They get most of the story out of him, in the end, although Tony makes them work for it, treading the line between sarcastic and outright rude with a careful eye on their mutually flat expressions. He even manages to surprise Romanoff, when she says, "Tell me about Loki."

"Well, you'd know," he answers. "You've met. She got the measure of you in one look."

Impressively, Romanoff only says, "Oh. _Lucy._ That's why we couldn't ID her. I suppose that was meant to be funny."

Tony shrugs. "Shapeshifter."

It's so tempting to tell them to go jump in a lake. Conveniently, there are no lakes within a hundred miles. As he points out multiple times, he hasn't done anything wrong, or even particularly illegal. There aren't any rules about this.

This whole thing was _personal_ , between Tony and Loki and Loki's family; it's not his fault they're alien royals. It just got a little out of hand, and Tony took the opportunity to make a point. Some buildings got broken, but Tony will ask Pepper very nicely if the company will pay to rebuild them, if anyone cares. Nobody else got hurt.

He handled it, okay? SHIELD's help was appreciated, and is no longer necessary. And no, he did not mishandle a first-contact situation, did they _not hear_ the part where Loki has been on Earth for nearly eight years now and that first contact has come and gone? Probably in the Dark Ages, actually?

Coulson and Romanoff do not buy this argument.

He's going to hear about this for freakin' _forever._

They nag him for what feels like hours, until Tony's staring longingly at the empty road and toying with the water bottle an agent had brought him. Sealed lid, and no teeny holes when he turned it upside down, so probably no truth serum in it. It's now very empty.

"…and you actually can't keep me here," he realizes aloud. "Look, I get it, okay? Fury knows I don't play well with others, so I can't believe you're surprised I – we – did this without you. It's not like there are _people_ for things like this, and it was none of your business anyway. But thanks for the assist. Can we finish this later? I've had a really long day."

* * *

They let him go – well, they don't stop him – and Tony turns his back on everyone and walks off into the desert, past the charred Celtic knot of ash the Bifrost had left when it took Loki away. Keeping his eyes firmly away from that, and knowing that he's being watched, he hides himself behind some of Jane's equipment and carefully counts to five.

Then he clicks the second clasp of his bracelet closed, and he's invisible.

When he knows no one can see him, then he can stand up again and walk briskly back into town. Let SHIELD look for him out there; he just can't deal with them anymore. Does he still have his phone on him? He mutes it.

It's already late afternoon, and Tony weaves from long shadow to long shadow, staying out of the way of the agents who look more and more at a loss for what they're supposed to do now. Tony feels that same aimlessness creeping up on him like the tide. Any second now, it's going to hit him.

He needs to sit down, somewhere no one will step on him. That would be awkward.

Because he doesn't have any better ideas, he climbs onto the wreckage of one of the small and uninhabited buildings. It might have been a general store, once; there are empty shelves poking out from the collapsed drywall and worn Sheetrock. Now it looks like an earthquake hit it, roof collapsed in on itself and fragments of the walls jutting up like broken teeth.

Tony sits down on one of the slabs of crumpled fake stone, and tries not to fall apart.

He's been running on momentum, on the singing tension of waiting for Thor to realize he'd been had, then on the adrenaline rush of battle, and then on the jangling irritation of dealing with SHIELD. And now? Now he's got nothing.

Now there's just him. Now he has to deal with today.

He can't. He just can't. He's not good with endings, and this is one; he's not good with grief, and he's mourning the death of something. Maybe no one's bleeding out in the dust, but he'd loved their secret. The maddest, the best relationship he's ever been in, and all the surprises of it. Always more to discover, every day, every time he managed to sneak up on Loki just right or ask the right question; he had to earn it, but he _could_. He had to try, and he wanted to – who else _challenges_ him like that?

Today has gutted him and left his entire life open to the sky, and the vultures are pulling it apart.

And underneath that, he's scared. He's so, so scared for Loki, because _anything_ could be happening to his lover, and if it went wrong, _how would he know?_ No one on Asgard gives a damn about Tony. Thor wouldn't come back and tell him; Tony would just have to live with the mystery, and he couldn't do that. He'd spend his whole life looking around corners, startling at every flicker of green out of the corner of his eye, chasing down everyone with long, dark hair. Wandering Vegas, chasing a ghost, staring raptly at the magic tricks he now knows are _real_ magic, crumbs after the vanished feast.

He keeps remembering the way Loki had kissed him goodbye this morning – _just_ this morning. Desperately, and reluctantly, and despairingly, and while Tony had tried to reassure him, and himself, he hadn't been able to find the words and had hoped it had all come through in the kiss. All his usual babble, and he'd been speechless, because they'd both known it might be goodbye forever.

Tony wasn't the only one who'd been scared. It hadn't helped.

But Loki had gone anyway, and Tony loves him a bit for it. So much easier to hate someone from a distance. Easy to plot against them, but to stand toe to toe with them? To stare them down, and demand that things be set right?

It takes strength to gamble, even if you think you hold the winning hand. Knowing that you're not in control, and hazarding everything, regardless…

And worse – yeah, there's worse, sucking at his feet with every step, slipping in through the cracks as Coulson and Romanoff tried to lever his story apart. In the face of their practiced skepticism, Tony had felt his own convictions begin to crumble.

Because what if he's been played? _Again_ , he doesn't let himself even think. What if the joke's on him? What if Loki can't pass up the opportunity to leave his much-resented brother here on Earth and rub Thor's nose in the irony?

What if that kiss goodbye had been forever – by _choice_? What if it had been an ending, because Loki has what he wanted? He'd found his way home.

(Tony had seen the Bifrost scorch through the sky and it had taken all his self-control to not pick up that bottle of moonshine and drink until he choked.)

What if that victory turned out to be _everything_ Loki wanted with no room for anything else? At the heart of it, what the hell does Loki need with Tony now?

What if _none_ of it had been real, or not enough to matter? What makes him so damn sure – _knowing_ how good a liar Loki is, how willing he is to mislead and deceive and manipulate – that Tony hasn't fallen prey to any of that?

He doesn't _want_ to believe it, but every empty second weighs on him.

God, Tony's so done. He just can't do today anymore.

Everything's uncomfortably numb, from the relentless sun clinging to the sky like a child throwing a tantrum, and the faint harshness of every breath from the faux-stone dust drifting about in the still air, and the sluggish darkness behind Tony's eyes when he closes them, and the sullen ache of his broken wrist, to the violated feeling of SHIELD pawing over his life, making him second-guess things he thought he was sure of. Instead, Tony tries to block everything out, letting himself slump sideways, relying on whatever's at his shoulder to hold him up.

Movement under his nose, and he opens his eyes, taking on autopilot a couple of the colorful bits of chocolate being offered to him and popping them into his mouth. The sugar shock wakes him up again, and he sits up and realizes –

Loki's grinning down at him, alive and well and looking _entirely_ pleased with himself, smug beyond _belief_ as he eats the remaining M &Ms in a single bite. And even though he's wearing that elegant, still-alien armor, this could be any old day in Vegas, when he'd appear at Tony's side from nowhere, without fanfare, without warning, tracking him down seemingly without effort. Something's ever so slightly off about him, but Tony's tripped over the fact of Loki being _here_ at all, and is far too flat on his face to figure it out.

" _Oh my god,_ " Tony blurts out, "you're back."

For a moment, he's frozen, unable even to reach out and embrace him. It's not that he's ashamed to, because he's invisible and presumably Loki is too, and _hell_ , Loki has seen him do way more embarrassing things – and been the cause of and reason for many of them. It's not that he doesn't want to tackle his lover right over and hang onto him _forever_ , because right now, he wants nothing more.

He just genuinely can't move.

"And you doubted me?" Loki asks, displeased. He rolls his eyes disdainfully and nudges his shoulder against Tony's. "Don't do that, or whatever did I return for?"

And kisses him, which solves that problem right off. _Now_ Tony can move; now he can slide his free hand up that formfitting leather armor and tangle his fingers in long hair. That tiny fragment of _difference_ tweaks at his awareness, but he's busy. He can open his mouth against his lover's like he's breathing him, like there's all the air they'll ever need right here between them. He can close his eyes into this with every hint of exhaustion burnt away beneath the jolt of pure and absolute joy; it'll be back, but that's okay. He can be tired today; there _will_ be a tomorrow to wake up in!

"You're all right," Tony finds himself saying when his mouth remembers there are other things to do than kiss his utterly impossible alien trickster. "Are you all right? What happened, Loki, are you –"

"Hush, pet, I'm unharmed. I cannot say my father is pleased with me, but then, he rarely is. And you? What is this?"

Long fingers rest on his splinted wrist, and Tony shrugs, indifferent to it now. Chop the hand off at the wrist, and the soaring relief expanding in his chest, because he _wasn't wrong,_ would still be euphoric enough to block out any pain. For a while, at least. "Your brother and I had a fight." He grins. "I won."

Loki's answering grin is _evil_. "Oh, Tony, I rue only I could not have seen that, and that I may not mock him over it, unless you fancy a second bout. Well done, my warrior; few in all the Realms can say they have bested Thor in battle."

Tony's absolutely unashamed about melting into the arms around him, happy to be held. _Please never let go; can I keep you now?_ "Wasn't to the death. I yelled at him some, and he backed down."

"Still," Loki says firmly, and kisses his temple.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm alive. And you dodged the freakin' question _again_ , princess: what happened?" He pulls back and looks Loki over – _still_ fun, especially as he can't spot any obvious wounds; no scorch marks or tears in his armor, either. He could have just come off parade, if Asgard has parades.

And as he does so, Tony finally spots what's different; it says something that he's grown so used to Loki's Asgardian look. For as long as he's known Loki, no matter what his lover has been wearing – or not – there's been a bright green gemstone winking from his right earlobe. _Keeps me hidden,_ Loki had said, from Asgardian eyes.

And now it's gone.

With words tangling in his mouth like a ball of yarn, he can't help but reach across with his good hand and trail his fingers across that tiny, empty bit of skin, as the reality of it hits home. Asgard knows where Loki is.

He's just as exposed to his people as Tony is, with SHIELD all over the place asking – finally – the right questions.

"I will not say I cannot hide from watchful eyes anymore," Loki says wryly, following his train of thought easily, "for assuredly I will again, as I have before. But for now, at least, Father and I shall pretend that all is settled between us, though I doubt I've won any great favor with him for today."

"Okay, now you're just playing with me – _tell_ me already! What did you do?" Tony demands, glaring and thumping his hand down on Loki's chest halfheartedly. "Did you threaten your dad, or something? With that?" He nods at that goddamn engraved stick Loki had put so much work into, lying idly on his lover's other side.

Loki's scowl is equally halfhearted. "Tony, for shame. _Threaten_ my king? The All-Father? I'm loyal; I'd never. And I'm not that foolish, more to the point."

It's not the point, but he has to know. "So what is that?"

Chuckling, Loki says, "It's a decoy. I can't lift Mjolnir; no one else can. But I can build a strong illusion on this base." He picks it up, and at once, it's a perfect replica of Thor's super-mallet. "I'm sure I told you this," he adds, as the illusion fades.

Tony's tempted to poke him, repeatedly and as annoyingly as he can manage. "Okay, yeah, but seriously, Loki, you put weeks of work into that. And you're never that straightforward. What _else_ is it?"

"Hah. Tony, never try to outguess me."

"Yeah, but you know I'm going to, right?" Tony can't help but put in.

"You can try." Loki grins at him mischievously, and flips the rod into the air. It tumbles, sparking with the lines of magic coiling up and down it, and thuds into the earth before them, discarded. "Really, that's all it is. Just something to draw the eye and keep Father uncertain." In response to Tony's incredulous look, he adds, "It makes a lot of noise, as you might say. It's very flashy. But it's harmless."

Shaking his head, Tony gives him the point. Straightforward – when no one expects him to be. "Misdirection."

Loki laughs as if this were years ago, as if they'd done nothing more insane than go climbing in a construction zone after midnight, like this was a Vegas rooftop and the only place the word _Asgard_ belonged was in old mythology books. "Misdirection."

"You bastard," Tony praises him, and insists, "So did it work? What's going on, Loki? You're here and laughing and okay, but are you? Fill me in, dammit!"

His lover hesitates, a shadow creeping into his eyes, and Tony has time for only an instant of renewed fear before Loki says, "We bargained. Father blames me for disrupting what little balance there was to Alfheim, and so I will restore it for him, as I would have done had he trusted me more in the first place and put me to the work that I am suited for. I will set it to rights though I was not in the wrong."

"Wait, you just asked?" Tony says. "And all's forgiven?"

Loki grimaces ruefully, mouth twisting. "Do you remember my tale of how Sleipnir came to Asgard? I trapped and trained him as a gift for my father, to make peace. Well, and he is angrier with me, this time, so the gift must be greater. And thus I will offer him Alfheim."

It's strange, but Tony can kind of see it.

"That is something he desires, and worth the price of a few favors. I must be able to move in secret, and so I have my Sight again. I can find the Ways between worlds, and so I am come here. Should I triumph, I will be restored to my place on Asgard."

Which is everything they've been working for, Tony hears, but Loki spreads a hand out, and looks away, and continues, "…and so, pet, I must be gone."

Somehow, Tony bites back an inarticulate noise of the grief and loss flooding into him, bursting the banks of too-temporary delight and victory. _How?_ How, after everything, can Loki go back there?

 _But they don't appreciate you there_ , he doesn't say. _But they don't need you like I do. But nothing will change, Loki; you'll get stuck back into what they want you to be and whoever that is, he's not you. Don't leave. Don't leave me._

Perhaps Loki hears some of it, because he rests that hand on Tony's shoulder. "I have a great deal of work to do, Tony. It will take time."

Tony nods until he can speak again. "I know," he manages, struggling.

When Loki tries to meet his eyes, Tony won't let him; he looks away. Nevertheless, Loki says conversationally, "Do you know what Midgard has invented, that Asgard must learn of?"

There's still the taste of M&Ms on his lips, Tony's mouth and Loki's, so he retreats into safer territory and makes it a joke. "Chocolate?"

"Well," Loki snorts, " _obviously_. But other than chocolate."

Tony thinks about it for perhaps five seconds, and then the hurt churning inside him floods out. "You know what, Loki, I have no idea. I'm too tired to play Twenty Questions, okay? I've fought your brother for you, and I've dealt with SHIELD for you, and I set all this up in the first place, which you could not have done without me, not like this, and you know something?"

He doesn't give Loki a chance to answer; seriously, let's have some of that occasional _straightforward_ for once _._ "That doesn't even include the past few years, because I have done _so_ much for you. I have put up with so much _from_ you, come to think of it. I let you into my _life_ , and I have stuck by you, and I've given you things I didn't even think I was capable of, and I – and you're leaving _anyway_ , and – oh, to hell with it, Loki. Just tell me."

Loki's somewhat dumbfounded look, which under other circumstances would be the best thing _ever_ , fades into a fond and deeply amused smile; Tony doesn't resist when Loki cups his chin in one hand, tips his jaw up, brushes the lightest of kisses against his lips, and whispers to them, "Weekends."

It takes a second, as Tony blinks at him.

And then he howls with mad, _mad_ laughter, as the meaning of that sinks in.

"You're going home _part-time?_ " he demands when he can breathe again, finding himself flat on his back on the Sheetrock slab; the lengthening shadows have covered it, but it's warm and rough like a tiger's tongue beneath his shirt. "You're serious?"

Loki actually ruffles his hair one-handed, smirking down at him. "I will not leave Asgard, pet. I have work to do there, and it is my home. But I have my Sight back and the Ways are mine to travel at will, so why should I not come here as I wish to?"

"No reason," Tony says breathlessly, too relieved even to swat that hand away – pet, Loki can call him; pett _ed_ , he might have a problem with, some other time. "Oh, man, _yes_ – that's all I want for you. I know you're going to be busy, but…have something for yourself, okay? When you can? Don't let them own you."

That single nod is one of the best things Tony's ever seen. "I will return as I may, then – if I am welcome?"

Tony reaches up, grabs a handful of that high collar, and uses it to lever himself up so that they're nose to nose, only a breath away. "If you don't," he growls like it's a threat, "I will track you down. You go traveling to all the planets you like, go and be Prince of Asgard until they tell you that you have to be something you're not, and then set 'em on fire for doubting you, but you belong here too, okay? Come home sometimes." He says it and he doesn't care.

Loki kisses him, which, since he's conveniently right there, was kind of the point.

 _Yeah_ , Tony thinks, sinking into it with pure relief. _I can live with that._

He'd known he could never own Loki either; he can't control his mad alien prince, and he wouldn't try. But if Loki will come back to him, now and again, knowing he's wanted – well, that's not all that different from what they've been doing all along. He'll just be a little further away than Vegas, and there's probably terrible cell phone reception on Asgard. But if they can be together _sometimes…_ It's not like they could stand being around each other _always_ anyway. They've always done better if they each pursue their own work and their lives intersect. That's as good as it's going to get.

It's a hell of a commute, but they can do the long-distance thing. They have before. And if, when Loki's not off fighting sword-and-sorcery battles on an alien world and keeping three steps ahead of his brother, and Tony's not flying around the world being Iron Man and launching ships off into space and dealing whatever else happens to come his way…

They can still have each other, when there's time.

And Tony, for one, is going to _make_ time, because if there's one thing he's sure of, as this crazy day bleeds out, it's that he still needs his magician.

Not to stand guard over him. But to keep him on his toes trying to outguess and outdo someone who keeps challenging him. And to pull heady, hungry whimpers from his throat as Loki devours him, breath by breath, and Tony loses his hand in the addictive texture of long, dark hair between his fingers and the harsh lines of his lover's skull beneath them.

To hell with the wreckage, the desert, the heat, the superspies probably looking for Tony by now, the sulking alien warrior probably waiting for his brother to turn up and rescue him, the empty days ahead that Tony's going to have to fill up with everything that comes to hand. For a little while longer, he can shut it all out and focus on right here, right now.

He really hopes they're invisible.

"Are you going to come talk to SHIELD?" Tony asks eventually, reluctantly. He'd much rather stay here and savor their victory, but sometime very soon kissing isn't going to be enough, and he'd prefer to learn how to strip Loki out of that alien armor of his somewhere more comfortable than this chunk of overheated wreckage. "They've got their fur all ruffled over missing you."

His magician's expression is pure disdain. "Must I?"

With great satisfaction, Tony says, "Nope." He's not on this planet to make their lives any easier or to do their jobs for them; if they really want to meet Loki, let 'em put in the work themselves and _earn_ that. _He_ did.

Loki's smirk wavers before it really gets going, and he asks, "Will they pester you more fiercely, for my absence?"

 _You_ , Tony was sure before this, but is absolutely sure now, _are not the untouchable imperial jackass you keep acting like, and you really do like me_. "Probably not," is all he says.

"Then I will retrieve my doubtless irate brother out from under their gazes, and return to Asgard. For the present," Loki adds, and Tony smiles at him.

There's the smirk. "And we shall let them wonder."

* * *

 _Alfheim:_

Behind him, Thor can hear the jingling of horses' bridles as the camp rises with the first sun, undercut by the calling back and forth of sentries on guard against the occasional lone attacker, small party of raiders, or windborne curse-fog. Not a day goes by without some knot of screaming light elves, brandishing handfuls of well-used blades and firing off nasty, painful spells, springing in meaningless ambush upon Asgard's warriors. Coals crackle as those warriors stir the flames back to life, and the smell of fire and searing meat and blackening stones cuts through the green air of the vast and heavily forested valley not five measures from their camp.

Its shadows and hollows are riddled with their enemies, but still Thor looks over at it with satisfaction. Their full might has yet to be brought to bear, and he will fight the light elves for every footprint of leaf-choked earth if that is what they demand.

It will be a long battle, but for all he had chafed to leave before, now he is relieved to be back on ground that, while he does not understand it, at least he knows his task here. Even the labyrinth of the forest can be conquered.

Half in jest, Thor had suggested on sight of it that they simply set it ablaze, and burn out the haven where so many of their enemies seem to have fled. But it was only a jest, and he'd raised a hand and laughed at the exasperated expression on Loki's face and his brother's snarl of, "Father commanded _control_ of Alfheim, Thor, not its destruction! Leave something to rule."

But even Asgard's warriors would hesitate in the face of such flames, which would have raged beyond control had they even caught, dense and damp as the forest is. And so the great wildwood remains, providing shelter and standing between the keeps and territories of so many of Alfheim's remaining rebel lords and Asgard's force.

For that, it seems, is why Alfheim resists so, or so Loki has described it to him. They have no king, and its lords do not act together, and its diverse races are even less in harmony. They must be defeated one by one, and any warrior who escapes a battle or cunning speaker who assembles a force to himself may call himself a lord and relish the quarrels his ascension brings.

As well tread upon mushrooms after rain, as think to subdue Alfheim with a single blow.

Instead, their forces must hunt, chasing sparks that flutter away and catch to become wildfires.

Thor scowls at the map laid out before him, drawn in Heimdall's hand to show days of travel at a glance. The reports of scouts bleed into the parchment, pulsing tentatively, waiting to be confirmed and settle into the map. But battlefields change quickly, and all Alfheim is a battlefield. Where the elves do not fight Aesir, they fight their own kind and the others who share this world.

"Divide them into packs," Thor commands his captains: strong, obedient men and a single woman grim-jawed enough to be a man herself. "We cannot march in a single column, not through the deep forest. Tell them to stay together, and to keep eyes on at least one man from another group."

"And should they be attacked?" one of the captains asks. "Should they pursue?"

It is a fair question. They almost certainly will be. In truth, Thor would be disappointed should they pass through the forest untouched, because then they will have enemies at their backs. Better to hunt out their foes now, as if dragging a net through a river in pursuit of a meal.

"Not out of sight of their fellows –" Thor begins to say, and is cut off.

"No," Loki says, appearing from nowhere. "We go here."

Everyone around the camp table startles, and Loki grins at them all. Thor scowls at his brother; he had wondered where Loki had gotten to, and been wary. But he is irked less for the playfulness out of place than for what their alarm says about his warriors. Half a dozen war-worn commanders, and _still_ no one noticed Loki treading among them, invisible as he was.

Resolving to scold Loki later, though he will almost certainly forget – he has more useful things to do – Thor looks instead at where his brother is pointing to on the map.

"The pass is guarded," he growls. The memory is not a proud one, for he had laughed and hurled Mjolnir against the first flash of an arrowhead, shivering in the hands of its wielder perched high among the rocks.

Most certainly the archer had been killed, but the same blow had shattered the rock face, and the echoes had set the whole region shuddering, so that even the unstable earth tilted beneath their feet. The sounds of their armor clattering had drawn more arrows, and they had been forced to retreat.

Taking the pass through the spell-trapped and shivering ground will cost more blood and time than the forest.

And still, the thought of it grates less than having Loki contradict him before the commanders and the listening ears of soldiers idling by, curious to hear what task they will be set to today. It is _unnerving_ to have Loki stare him down, level-eyed and unmoving, no hesitation in his voice.

The former is the more easily settled, and so instead Thor says only, "A tiny force could hold that pass. They have the heights, and the shadows, and the shivering ground protects them."

Loki shrugs. "That was yesterday."

The smile in his eyes is well-familiar. "Loki, what have you done?"

"Don't talk to me as if I disobeyed you," Loki snaps. "Let me work!" But he waves the brief anger away, resuming almost at once his casually self-satisfied mien. "It seems someone crept within range of their camp on light paws under cover of darkness and hexed all their bowstrings. They won't get off more than one volley," Loki tells the commanders, who lower their eyes to the map again and start tracing out lines of approach. "Leave their sorcerers to me, and then it's hand to hand. You should enjoy that," he adds to Thor. "They'll try to rush you."

The prospect of battle in the open air rather than skulking about beneath trees does please him, and yet Thor must ask, "How do you know?"

His brother grins, an all-too-familiar façade of innocence proclaiming his guilt like a banner. "Because someone very confidently promised them it would work. They're running low on supplies, too – not my doing, for once. On which point, can I smell breakfast? They're not feeding their soldiers enough, I was half considering hunting for myself on the way back. There's a gap in the patrols, by the way."

Loki gestures to one of the commanders and draws her aside to point out the flaw he's spotted, leaving Thor to glare at the map and the remaining squadron leaders, who have clearly abandoned all thought of the forest and are muttering together about the pass through the shivering ground.

"See to it," Thor orders them, and strides away.

He corners his brother by one of the campfires. Loki's picking apart a handful of thick-stuffed bread, absently brushing aside the inquisitive noses of two of the horses tethered nearby as they crane their necks over him and sniff at the food. The preparations for travel continue without either of them; Asgard's warriors train to march as much as they fight, and as long as there is someone to lead them, they will follow.

Thor is none too pleased that it is Loki's command they are following today.

"What do you think you are doing?" he demands.

Loki raises an eyebrow at him. "Eating breakfast?"

"Without playing, Loki! How dare you contradict my orders before their eyes?"

"Because the forest is a trap; there are spells laid into every branch and burrow, to confuse and misdirect and devour. I can sense them. Because you were wrong," Loki snaps, meeting and holding his gaze. "And so you will listen to _me_ for once in your life, trusting that I wish this campaign to succeed."

Taken aback, Thor starts, "Listen here –"

"No," Loki stops him, and Thor falls silent if only in redoubled surprise. "You listen. I'm tired of fixing your messes – don't ask me _what_ messes, or we'll be here until Svartalfheim lives again. So here's a better idea, brother. When you're wrong, I'll tell you."

He doesn't let Thor get a word in, not that Thor had more than a growl at the ready. _Midgard_ – that strange world has done more than teach his brother a few odd turns of phrase, and Thor is not at all certain he likes it.

They've never worked together well. That is, Thor knows how they have always done things, and that serves perfectly. Thor, as the elder, leads and Loki follows, guarding his back and solving problems that elude him, watching for trouble and clues equally, supporting him when he does not know where to move next.

But to be sure of his actions, and to have Loki stand up and say _no, this is what we are going to do_ , and _insist_ so far as to take the command out from under his hands… That is unsettling indeed.

"In return I ask only that you consider I _might_ know of what I speak," Loki demands.

He will have to think about it, but Thor _will_ think about it. He is not opposed to Loki's ideas – he has relied on his brother's quick wit many times – it is that Loki seeks to give _him_ commands that he cannot stomach.

"What if I ask you first?" Thor says.

Perhaps he takes some snide pleasure in Loki's surprised pause. "…for my advice?" he ventures, allowing the chestnut mare to nibble the last piece of bread from his hand.

"Aye, for I will not have you countermanding my orders. But I can listen, if you speak to me."

An instant's more of hesitation, and Loki dusts his hands together dismissively, shedding crumbs and the conversation. "Well. It's a start." He smiles wryly. "Still, don't imagine I'm going to hold my tongue overmuch. Father told us to end this war," he reminds Thor. " _Us_. Well, me, but since you're here anyway…"

" _Since I'm here_?" is all the protest Thor can manage. That's what he gets for trying to be reasonable to Loki – more sarcasm.

He can't believe he's surprised.

"I'm dealing with Alfheim, did I not say I would? Let me do what I do best," Loki says, "and I'll find you battles to win. You may want to drag this out for some imagined glory – who exactly will be applauding you, as you get more of our warriors killed? – but I have other uses for my time."

As he walks away, Thor yells to his back, "In such haste to run back to your mortal _friend?"_

"I'll tell Jane Foster you asked after her!" Loki calls back.

* * *

Tony's very grateful for the Stars Expo; the results of it let him fill the four months that go by without a word from Loki. He misses _text messages,_ even. This is not fair. He doesn't wish Loki stuck on Earth…he just wants Loki to be somewhere there's reception. Is that too much to ask?

Evidently so. But he can focus on self-assembling habitat designs, or radiation shields, or exosuits, or interplanetary communications – not without a scowl at the transmitters that will reach Mars but not Asgard – or hydroponics experiments, or crew compatibility assessment metrics. They help him ignore Fury's tirade about…teamwork and responsibility and something like that, Tony wasn't listening.

"And _no_ , I can't get Loki back for you," Tony had finally interrupted the chief spy. "Because if I could, I'd get him back for _me._ "

This is logic, and while Tony knows that SHIELD is still stalking him, they at least back off until he can ignore them.

One somewhat damp Wednesday afternoon, Tony's at Vandenberg reviewing designs for an actual, full-sized, people-carrying Earth-to-Mars-to-Earth spaceship. An arc reactor the size of the factory one, but far more efficient, blazes in its tail, and smaller ones scattered around the hull will do the work of flight stabilizers and allow the still-theoretical ship to flip around and reverse thrust to decelerate. It's only one proposal of a dozen finalists, meaning he'll be here all week.

It doesn't have a name yet, but around him, a spirited debate on the subject is quickly becoming an argument, with suggestions – and a misaimed roll of tape – bouncing off the walls. As the quick-thinking engineer stands up from her dodge with the ballistic tape in hand and lobs it back, Tony snags a chair almost out from underneath the guy who's just run off to join the fictional spaceship names faction, sits back, and wishes he had popcorn.

Someone behind him is already lobbying for _Lying Bastard_ , and Tony's going to find out who remembers the _Liar_ and buy them a consolation drink, because even he can't get that past any sort of approval process.

His phone buzzes while Robinson's growling them all into order again, and at first, he ignores it. It does that a lot, and he's busy planning to build a spaceship and having a blast.

About an hour later, long after they've gotten back to work on computer overrides and manual thruster controls, he thinks to check it.

 _I'm back_ , the message reads. _I'm probably asleep. The door will let you in._

For a minute, Tony just stands there at one corner of the giant simulation board's only slightly smaller console, staring at the phone in his hand, feeling a stupidly goofy smile spread across his face. And then he's tapping the _save_ button on the interface, and not even bothering with excuses as he dodges through the crowded room, practically running for whichever parking lot he left today's car in.

There will still be lots of propulsion problems to solve when he gets back, and they're smart people. They can poke holes in their own ideas, although probably with less wit and sass than Tony brings to the drafting table. Brainstorming about spaceships is one of the best games of Sarcasm Darts ever.

A couple of hours – _stupid traffic! Should have brought the suit_ – later, he's handing the keys over to a valet at the Venetian and staring around faux-idly as if enjoying the Las Vegas sun. In November, it's actually not all that bad. And then, as if he had nothing better to do, he strolls across the Strip to the Mirage like he'd picked it at random.

Still on the quiet, the two of them. One day…

Of course, if it's ever reported that _Tony Stark has a boyfriend and he's an alien_ …well, at least no one will believe it. But it's a headache Tony doesn't need and Loki doesn't deserve – most of the time, although some days… There's no way that would end well for anyone.

Las Vegas is probably as outrageous and crowded and impossible as usual; he doesn't see any of it. He pauses only to wonder if he can remember which floor Loki's hideout was concealed on, because he was a little distracted, last time. He's going to feel pretty stupid if…never mind, he'll check every storage closet in the resort if he has to.

But he's right first time. The hallway is silent and still, all the nearby doors closed, and the doorknob turns under his hands innocuously enough. It opens on what looks at first like empty shelves and a discreet little triangular sign that says _Cleaning_. Tony only has the chance to scowl, disconcerted, before the image blurs and fades out, replaced by a familiar-looking void-black emptiness.

This time, he doesn't hesitate to step through. Darkness washes over his vision for no more than a second, with a feeling like loose, thin fabric sliding across his face.

He emerges into the sight of Asgard's stars beyond the glowing ocean, the high ceiling above vanishing in shadow, the lights in the wall-mounted torches burning only dimly. This is probably night mode. Practically nothing is where it was the last time he was here. The craftwork spread across the low table has been replaced with a large map, much-scribbled on in angular characters Tony can't read – but he recognizes Loki's handwriting. The corner of Loki's laptop is sticking out from underneath it, battery light blinking pitifully. What Tony first takes for a pencil turns out to be a narrow white candle, wax dripping down its naked sides and wick charred like pencil lead, weighing down one corner and lying on its side.

Something nudges at his hair, and Tony jumps in place, waving his hands as if to bat away a fly. When he looks around, the origami serpent – no, it's a dragon, wings outspread like sails and legs drawn up against its body – is coiling away huffily, back humping like an aggrieved cat.

"Sorry," Tony whispers at it, and pulls a face at himself.

He's never going to get over the wonder of these hidden rooms, but he takes only a moment to stare around and let his brain get accustomed to the idea that the everyday corridor he left and this fantastic space might be connected. It's a little easier to imagine that he's been teleported somewhere else – how the hell is _that_ the more acceptable explanation?

But really, not Tony's priority right now. No, that would be the bedroom – he keeps thinking bed _chamber_ , because magic and princes and migratory paperback fantasy novels and stuff – off to his left.

Although he does stop to plug in that poor laptop, not without wondering how Loki got a totally everyday power outlet in here.

Stopping in the doorway, he lets himself just stare.

Loki looks – _almost_ – like any man who's had a long day and laid down for a nap without bothering to take off more than his shoes and socks, sprawled out atop the dark furs, on his back with one arm folded over his chest and the other loose at his side. The _almost_ is for the medieval leather tunic and the dragon-scaled guards covering his forearms, one loose and half-removed as if he'd fallen asleep before finishing the job. It's for the hair braided back from his face in a long plait and the dagger wedged into a crack in the headboard, in the same way a regular person would leave a glass of water on the nightstand. He might be paler than usual, exhausted; it's hard to tell in the dim lighting.

 _Goddammit, I've missed you,_ Tony doesn't say aloud, but he can't stop the relieved sigh as he slumps against the arched doorframe.

Carefully, treading lightly, he comes to stand by the bed and lets his fingers brush against Loki's upturned palm, where traces of melted wax still linger. He's pretty sure that startling his warrior prince awake will not end well. The knife he can see is _no way_ the only one, and probably a decoy.

Paranoid bastard.

Tony's crazy about him.

Instead, long fingers tighten around his, and Loki says something disarmingly ordinary like "Mmph," and doesn't quite wake up as he mumbles, "Tony?"

"I'm here," Tony says, too happy even to say anything like _well who did you think it was?_ as his magician turns towards him blindly, following the sound of his voice. "You want company?"

"'m tired."

"Just company," he promises. The rest can wait.

…until Loki's more awake, at least, at which point Tony's going to demand _some_ sort of recompense for the agony of being exclusive with someone who vanishes for _months_. He has so many ideas, they're all exquisitely filthy, and some of them involve Loki being female for a while.

Tony catches a glimpse of one eye opening, just a hint of a glance, and then Loki nods before, to all appearances, going back to sleep.

But it's a big bed, and there's plenty of room for Tony as he kicks his shoes off and away and settles at Loki's side. He scrambles together some of the pillows to make a backrest and gives in to the impulse to trail his fingers down that long braid. That's a new look on him; Tony kind of likes it, but prefers his lover's hair loose. Easier to comb through, for one thing, and to Tony's great delight, that's one of Loki's secret weaknesses. He very nearly _purrs_ ; it's delicious.

Loki knows he's there, shifting to make space for him unconsciously at Tony's touch, and Tony grins as he pulls his phone out of his pocket and switches it on.

It's a small but significant bump down to Earth to see it connect to the Mirage's Wi-Fi.

So he can tap in the command that unfolds the slim phone into a bigger, tablet-sized screen, and log in remotely to the workshop still going on at Vandenberg. Someone there flips on the speech-to-text converter a SI software subcompany has just patented, and after a quick scroll through the last few hours of transcript, Tony dives back into one of the many, many – but shrinking! – challenges of getting that starship to fly, someday.

And maybe just as wonderfully, he's not alone.

The man beside him, breathing deeply and steadily with only the occasional nonsense-sounds of dreams, is from another world, and they're wrapped up in a space constructed of _real magic_ , concealed within a city where _everything_ 's weird. But in its own bizarre way, this is veering close to perfect.

* * *

"– and _how?_ " Tony demands, close on the heels of _when_. "Jane and Erik took all their research and created a detector that picks up the Bifrost's energy signature – SHIELD fell all over themselves trying to recruit them, and Darcy live-texted me Jane sending them packing a few times, just for spite, I think. Man, I like her. But Erik hashed out a compromise in the end, and Mystery Inc.'s been traveling around to every radio observatory and research lab in the country kitting 'em out with their new toy."

Darcy's still calling it a thoroscope, and confiding in him that Jane kind of misses its namesake, which Tony decides not to mention.

"I think they're off to Europe next year to cover more sky; Darcy's pretty excited. She's pitching for Australia next. So did they get it wrong, or are men in black about to come knocking? If you came down anywhere near Vegas, it's probably already on YouTube…"

Sitting cross-legged and at ease on the other half of the bed – too far away, but if he was any closer, they wouldn't be talking, Tony knows – Loki chuckles. "The Bifrost didn't bring me here. I came by a different road. After years of searching for it…well, there is some small pleasure in finding it at last, if too late."

"A different road?" Tony has to ask, knowing he's taking the bait, but happy to wallow in that mischievous look in Loki's eyes in response.

"One of the Ways." As they talk, Loki's been unbraiding his hair, fingers flickering, and as he untangles the last twist, he runs both hands through it absentmindedly with a tiny shake of his head to settle the whole long mane of it, and then turns those hands up between them.

At once, nine firefly sparks swell into glowing spheres, scattered through the air like a half-finished pool game without a table. One of them flattens out, leaving a cloud-veiled, inverted mountain like a ship's keel, and Tony glares at it less for the fact that it's Asgard than because it's – _dammit_ – flat after all. He recognizes Earth, and he wonders about the others as they spin by. One's dark-blue with white scratches like glaciers, another seethes like half-set lava, a third grey and featureless, a fourth deep green with turquoise oceans, another flatter-than-reasonable world. "The hidden passages between worlds… Look closer."

He sounds like the two-bit magician Rhodey had called him, and Tony rolls his eyes, but looks, squinting at…nothing, at first. Then, like an optical illusion, he starts to see the tiny spider-web threads between the nine worlds. When he looks straight at them, they vanish, but they gleam in the corner of his eye.

"I knew there was one near Las Vegas; the hunters Skadi sent after me could not have come far." Before Tony can ask – a minor miracle – Loki goes on, "You thought I was being hunted by criminals. Remember?"

"Fremont Street!" Tony cries, another puzzle piece slotting into place. "I wondered what that was about! So who were they, the not-mobsters?"

"Some of Thiassi's nastier allies; I think _trolls_ is the nearest word in your tongue. Not bright, but ready muscle, if tearing someone's arms off is all you ask of them. Mercenaries."

Trying to reconstruct that night, Tony checks, "Wait, I thought you killed him. That's what caused the power vacuum –" He wavers, glancing at the planets, unsure. They're not labeled. But the green-blue one glows more brightly. "– here. That's Alfheim? Neat. So did he survive, or did they come after you anyway –?"

He doesn't ask what had really happened in that alley; knowing what he knows now, had Loki ever directly _denied_ killing them? Tony hadn't exactly been thinking clearly back then, certainly not enough to keep up with Loki's talent for evading inconvenient questions.

"Oh, I killed him," Loki says, feral satisfaction in his voice. "I burned him to ashes, and _had_ he a grave, I would have led our warriors through as many battles as required to fight our way there, so I could spit upon it. But Alfheim loves its feuds, and he had a daughter who took poorly to me killing her father – I believe she wished to be the one to end him."

He grins. "That one, I have found. We've had words. She lives, and may be lady of her own court as she likes, as long as she raises no force against Asgard, with her life forfeit for any betrayal I care to pin on her. And in exchange, she led me to the Way her hunters trod, that led nearby."

"So there's a secret passage between Alfheim and Vegas?" Tony asks, staring at the illusory worlds and their web, and then at Loki. "Seriously?"

"Near enough to travel, though it takes old magic to walk it. And no, I'll not tell you where it opens," Loki scolds him. Too late, Tony tries to control his expression, which must be screaming how much he wants to see a _real, naturally-occurring wormhole_ for himself. "For I won't have you trying to traverse it alone."

"How about with company?" Tony begs shamelessly, not even sorry. "Will you show me, one day?"

A moment of hesitation, and then Loki smiles. "And of course you would ask," he says as if to himself. "All right. One day. When it does not lead into a battlefield."

It's not that Tony's forgotten that Loki's in the middle of a war over there; he's very aware of that, it's what's keeping his lover _away_ , after all. The reminder is still annoying, even if most of him is screaming with excitement – _so_ many worlds on his horizon! "Are you winning?"

Not that he's _impatient_ , either.

"That is my brother's sort of question," Loki says warningly. "It is not that simple. I believe we _can_ win, but it will be work, and doubtless no one will be fully pleased."

"I will be," Tony says confidently. "Because then you can come back and hang out with me more often."

He's even missed seeing Loki roll his eyes. "Tell me of Earth, then. Tell me of what you have been doing."

That's _easy_ ; Tony can talk about himself and Iron Man and the Mars program all day, and very nearly does, as Loki finishes unlacing that half-shed armguard and, totally matter-of-factly, hangs it and its mate by their ties from the knife's hilt, like it's a hat rack.

"…and I told you Mystery Inc. got adopted by SHIELD, right. The superspies are trying to get me working with them too. Fury's pretty insistent. I said I guessed I owed them one for backing me up against Thor…and I meant _one_ , but they've got some interesting problems. So if they let me pick what I want to get involved in, that might be okay. They've labeled me a consultant, but once they realize I can hack most of their databases, I bet they'll kick me out again. I'm giving 'em hell."

He leans back against the wooden headboard, which, now that he's got the time to notice, proves to be one of those things that a ton of work has gone into to make it look like no work has been done at all. Intricately carved to look like raw wood, with cracks and marks and knots – but _custom-made_ ones. One of those knots digs into his back, and he shoves a pillow he's becoming fond of behind his shoulders again.

Loki makes no objection to Tony rearranging his bed, which is…Tony's having a great day, all right? They can _do_ this! They have done this; except for the room they're in and the things they're talking about, this could be any day, hanging out together and keeping each other entertained. So Loki's been away for a while.

So what? He came back.

"I feel like they're courting me, actually – no, not like that." Loki hasn't _snapped_ to attention, but somehow, without changing at all, he's a lot more alert than he was a second ago, and Tony's just _so_ happy. "Fury called my bluff, and he's really trying to recruit me for his Justice League thing now."

"I didn't understand that," Loki declares with a shrug.

Tony laughs, not sorry. "I…could explain, I guess, but you know what? Don't worry about it. I really have better things to do."

Better things, like letting the pillow at his back slide back to the furs as he crawls across the short space between them and finally kisses Loki like he's been wanting to do for _four goddamn months_.

He barely hears his phone when it rings, because of the thrumming heartbeat and warm, sleek skin beneath his roving hands, but then it starts making the insistent whistle that means it's Pepper calling, so it's probably important. Also, if he doesn't answer, she'll call back. Immediately.

"I should answer that," he murmurs, every syllable reluctant.

With a small sigh, Loki releases him and sprawls back into the dark furs, muttering, "And that is why I do not answer _mine._ "

"Unless it's me, right?" Tony asks, and doesn't wait for the answer as he retrieves his phone, answers the call, and says "Hi Pepper," all while hunting for his shirt.

" _Tony, I need you to go to New York –"_ she starts, but Tony emerges from the shirt talking.

"Hold that thought a minute," he says. "You alone?"

"… _Yes, why?"_

"Awesome. Switching to video." Two taps at the screen, and the buzz of an empty line fizzes across it for a second before Pepper turns her phone camera on. She looks happily busy, a little distracted, very determined, ready to take crap from no one, and Tony remembers all over again how wonderful she is. How was he supposed to know that all he needed to do was get out of her way and let her soar? She's changing the world as much as he is, probably more.

"New York stuff later," he promises her, glancing over his shoulder and raising his eyebrows at Loki, off-screen, who's sitting up and tugging his own tunic back into place again. His magician nods _yes_ to the implied question, and Tony grins.

"Hey, Pep," he says, and shifts the camera to include both of them, "look who's back!"

She does a tiny, perfect double-take. _"Loki? Is that you? Welcome back! Were you_ really _on another planet, or was that just one of Tony's wild stories?"_

"My world, and another," Loki confirms.

" _That's…"_ Pepper shakes her head. _"From anyone else, I wouldn't believe it."_

Loki smirks at her, but without malice. "Pepper, I regret to say you have never been a good judge of me."

Tony's never seen that _look_ aimed at anyone else but him. It's the 'you are being stupid, and I'm going to wait here until you stop' flat glare. Pepper follows it up with, _"I'll be the judge of that, thank you. Are you coming back?"_

"When I can," Loki answers her. "But I am here only briefly, before I must return."

Tony knew that was probably coming, but he's not pleased to hear it, and he must flinch or make some quiet sound of protest, because Loki puts an arm around his waist almost absently. Here _now_.

" _Good,"_ is Pepper's verdict, and that helps too. Until she goes on, because whose side is Pepper on? _"He's been worried about you. And insufferable without you." She_ looks back at Tony, who sticks out his tongue and mugs at her like a child, resting against Loki's shoulder. _"He needs someone around who can cut him down to size."_

"And rescue my stupid butt sometimes," Tony puts in happily, a delicious shudder running through him as Loki laughs, the real, wicked sound that says someone's getting _hurt._

And answers both of them. "Someone _else,_ surely, Pepper? And I think you can probably rescue yourself by this point, pet. I always knew you could."

Not that Tony had any doubts about his inherent awesomeness, but he savors the easy, genuine praise. "Yeah, but if I need you, you'll come find me, right?" he asks anyway.

"You _know_ I don't answer my phone."

Pepper's watching them play with a small smile; Tony loves her a lot. He's going to be grateful to her forever for accepting Loki so readily, both the strange Vegas magician, scandal waiting to happen, whom she'd first met, and the impossible warrior alien, still fighting to trust humans with his secrets, whom she'd encountered unprepared. Surely, that had helped Loki learn to let his guard down, even if just a fraction; Tony never expected more, and still doesn't. Corroborative evidence. Confirmation that not everyone was an enemy. And maybe it's still helping, as they talk like friends, even if at Tony's expense.

" _Well, it's still good to have you back, Loki, for however long,"_ she says. _"Between you and him, you're still the rational one."_

"You know I can hear you, right?"

" _It's your phone,"_ Pepper says.

Rolling his eyes, Tony asks, "So did you call about something, or was that just Pepper Radar in action?"

" _Was that_ what _?"_

"You didn't hear me say that."

She narrows her eyes at him in a watered-down version of the earlier glare. _"I did…but it's nothing that can't wait. Call me back later, Tony – Loki, don't let him forget, all right?"_

Tony hangs up on the call grinning. It's taken years, but he's finally proven that stagehand at Circus Circus wrong. _Now_ Loki has friends.

* * *

"Be here more often," Tony says later, trailing a finger through a single droplet of hard-earned sweat tracing its way across his lover's stomach. His body is still humming with satisfied desire, his hands trembling, the bruise on his hip where a strong hand had gripped too tightly still only a shadow. In this secret place, with nothing to hide – and no one to hide from, for the still-hazy green eyes watching him are fond – he can be honest. "I miss you."

Loki hums half in thought, half in pleasure, and Tony considers closing his eyes and leaving his head pillowed on Loki's chest and just listening to that sound forever. "I have work still to do, pet," he says, but his tone is considering.

"You sound like me," Tony complains halfheartedly. "Never knew it was so _annoying_."

Laughing softly, Loki tugs on a bit of Tony's hair, perhaps slight payback for all the times Loki's snapped "Don't pull!" at him. Tony's usually cooperative about being told _no_ , but it's a command he has trouble remembering. It's just so tempting, and it's no secret that he enjoys when Loki gets rough with him. "We're not in pitched battle every moment, and now that I know the Way…I could try leaving Thor to his own devices, now and again."

"Hell, yes," Tony encourages him, pressing a kiss against his throat. "Then you can rescue _him_. Make sure he notices you doing it. Also invite me, so I can watch."

He goes along with it when Loki moves, shifting to prop himself up on one elbow and look down at the man at his side. The light from the arc reactor highlights the planes of his face, and Tony can't resist touching the borderline between shifting light and natural shadow. Gorgeous. He's always said so.

"Well, that would be reckless, and irresponsible," Loki says, far too serious, and Tony doesn't believe a word of it. He can see the amusement in his magician's eyes, hear the _I like the way you think_ that isn't being said. "Neglectful, almost, and entirely against the spirit of my bargain with Father."

Tony considers his options, and how much he likes this bed, and the rooms beyond it, and especially the utterly mad alien he doesn't want to be without anymore. And he won't have to, if he's patient. If he's strong. If he tries – if they both try. If they both want it. And Tony's in the heart of Las Vegas, after all.

He's willing to gamble, and always has been. And it's a hell of a run of cards he's holding, legacy of the chaos and glory and madness of the past few years.

So he's all in.

"And?" he challenges.

The smirk that's fighting to break through Loki's too-earnest façade is the Real Smile, ferocious and predatory and razor-edged, and nothing close to safe, serious, or sane.

In other words, just Tony's type.

"And," says Loki, "whatever _shall_ we do in the meantime, and afterwards?"

"Oh, man," Tony says. _Afterwards_ , and he'd said it so casually – _god,_ yes. Crazy ideas and outlandish possibilities splash their way across his imagination like fireworks. Most involve getting out of bed, some involve pushing back and/or kicking holes in every boundary of what's possible that they can find, and a couple involve slightly taking over the world. And even he can't imagine what _Loki_ 's going to come up with. He means every word: "What _can't_ we?"

* * *

In a space as dark as overcast midnight, silent not with emptiness but with the breathless anticipation of the people he can sense scattered around, the magician waits, power humming at his fingers, waiting to be released. He lets it crackle through his senses, striking sparks, small enough magic that it is, and savors the tension that sings through the room.

Loki is, for the moment, fearless. There is nothing here that can strike against him, and even cruel words are meaningless here, for the voices they speak in do not matter. They have no power over him, and – at last – he need not stay to endure them, for he is free once more.

All the worlds and home are open to him, and the sky is no longer the locked door of a sparkling cage. He may travel when and where he chooses again. For the moment, he has chosen to be here, and here, he is free to play.

He draws out the moment three heartbeats more before raising his hand into the darkness and snapping his fingers once.

And the sun comes up.

But not the sun as it burns above the city; its rays are wavering and broken into shimmering colors, as if the room were underwater. It glances off the multicolored scales of the fish that swim through the rippling, watery air, each at its own speed. A few of them dart almost faster than the eye can follow, veering away from the walls and around the slower schools that, moving all together, seem to be the flank of a greater beast, breathing in and out. A dragon, perhaps, all its scales individual shades, but blurring together into a combined hue. Others hover, lazily motionless save for the idle gesture of a single fin, letting the currents their fellows stir up wash them where they will. A ray wider than a man's outstretched arms is followed by dozens of black and gold fish no larger than a child's thumb.

Loki is particularly pleased with the light through the water. He had spent an enjoyable morning as an otter, diving and coiling and paddling through one of Las Vegas' enormous and well-stocked aquariums, drifting on his back far below the surface and watching its occupants move around and away from him. And it was to study the way they moved, of course, that he had darted after them, trying to keep his otter eyes on a single fish as the school shifted around it.

Drawing on the otter's love of play, he had let the body have its fun, returning to the surface only occasionally to breathe. As his otter form ran off its impulses, Loki himself had tapped his webbed paws against rough-edged corals and surfaces slimy with algae, pouncing at the silt of the false ocean floor to make it puff up in sparkling clouds all around him. While he had not failed to spot human faces gathering behind the glass of the tank, attention drawn by the fierce, playful little predator, he had entirely failed to care.

Let them watch, and he will do as he wishes – that is as it should be.

After a while, the otter had dived into concealment behind a pretend sunken ship, and Loki had made himself invisible, swimming up to the lip of the tank and grooming himself mostly dry before changing back into his own form. For the rest of the day, he had alternated between his Aesir self, wandering the familiar Las Vegas street to find bodies of water, and his otter form, playing in those channels and fountains, basking with his stomach against sun-warm stone, and chattering laughter at the alarm he caused, as the invisible otter churned up visible splashes.

Doubtless the ghost tours will be shifting their routes again.

The dolphins knew he was there when he circled back to their lagoon, clever ones, and Loki-otter had not been entirely sure he liked their hard noses brushing across his fur inquisitively, nor their sharp sounds striking against him.

At some point, the anger and frustration clawing at his shoulders had been washed away, unable to keep its grip on sleek fur and sinuous body, and Loki had been able to set aside the argument he had been having with Thor. At least now he has somewhere else to go, somewhere his talents are appreciated even if only as amusements.

At least now he need not stay here longer than he wishes to.

He has left Thor and Asgard's battle-hardened force with a simple task: a siege to break, a castle to assail, an army to meet in battle beneath its walls. They are hungry for it – _Thor_ is hungry for it – and his brother had not wished to be told that Loki could have settled this battle in a single moonless night and a sharp blade delivered on silent feet.

Instead of staying, and quarreling without hope of victory, Loki had said only, "Joy of it to you, then. Do be sure to keep a watch on the perimeter, as I'd hate to have you shed so much blood for empty stones," and when Thor's gleaming eyes had turned back to the high and fortified walls, Loki had called two of the commanders to his side and given those orders himself.

Then he had walked away, before returning on falcon wings to one of the territories they now hold and the Way concealed within. Alfheim is as frustrating as Thor had described, but there, at last, his talents can be put to their fullest use. There are people to play off against each other and _his_ kind of strategy to apply, learning alliances and planting suggestions and pushing things just a little bit; that is something he can do and do well. This war needs someone who can listen unseen, and use that knowledge to strike as precisely as a knife – Alfheim's feuds cannot be won with Asgard's honor.

Loki still does not understand the All-Father, but he knew Asgard's king could not allow a challenge to go unanswered, or undefeated. His father's desire to win would be greater than his desire to punish his son.

It has been about nine of Midgard's months since Loki returned to Asgard, traveling between home and the war and Midgard as he may, and he has found that while he and Thor _can_ work together, if commanded to, it does neither prince any harm to be out of each other's reach for a few days. Thor does not like sharing the command, and he will not soon forget how entirely his brother had tricked him. Loki is still delighted with that, whenever no one is watching. Honestly, he would almost think no one on Asgard had ever dealt with him before. Had the All-Father really expected to send a warrior to rebuke a shapeshifter, and get the right one _back?_

" _Every world plays the shell game," he had told Tony, that last, tense night as his easy escape had shattered on, and reformed around, an armored fist and sharp words and fierce, desperate eyes. "Whether with shells, or cards, or nuts, or hands, or cups, or spoons, or lives – on every world, there is only one way to win."_

" _There's a trick to it?"_

" _The oldest. Be the one running the game."_

He has three lives, it seems.

In one, he is again whom he should be – Asgard's silver-tongued prince, her wits and her blade in the darkness, guarding the throne he is loyal to and the home he loves. On the edges, still, but where else are guards to stand?

In another, he is Tony Stark's companion and lover, by his clever, strong-willed friend's side when he can be, welcomed and wanted and loved for – and not despite – his sharp tongue and affinity for chaos and mischief. They challenge each other to be better – and what concern of theirs is it, if _better_ is what others would call _worse_? They will create wonders, together, and be remarkable, and enjoy each other.

Loki had not been pleased, when he returned to Earth this time, to learn that Tony had the nerve to be _busy_ when Loki wanted him. But he has this third life still, and what was a prison and a necessity, with nothing else comprehensible to him, has become a playground. Childish, but diversion enough, and harmless.

Now the memories of the otter's adventures spring to life around him, etched into steel discs gleaming discreetly from the walls. Eight of them in place, and the command given, and the room becomes a living ocean. Fish and dolphins swim over the tiered seats, and among the upturned, awestruck faces of the performers and directors and technicians who will use this space. The shadows of wide-winged rays cut through the rippling sunbeams. All of them scatter, out of the path of a leisurely cruising shark, and its mad and ancient eyes seem to stare at the assembled crowd.

Sand and silt puff up from beneath human feet as they move, wary first of the predator and then of stepping on the smaller, hard-shelled animals concealed within or scuttling across the ground. Kelps and corals wave in imagined currents; algae coats the walls.

"God _damn_ ," someone says. Loki has been working with this group for the better part of four days, now, and while he recognizes the voice, he cannot recall the man's name. He simply does not care _that_ much. "How do you _do_ that?" he asks, but it's in the resigned tone of one who does not expect an answer.

"I'm very good," is all the answer Loki offers, smirking at their expressions.

The distraction is welcome, as he teaches them the commands they will need to summon and dismiss the illusion, and to direct the characters within it where to go and when. If the mortals attend, they will find the illusions respond to spoken words, and to gestures, with all the intelligence of human wit. The shark can hunt the fish, or the audience, or the fish can hunt it, as the performers choose. It can be sent away, or riled into a frenzy, or other sharks summoned, borrowed from the shark reef down the road.

Loki's otter form had rebelled at the sight of them all, the body refusing outright to dive into their water, knowing it would be prey in a single snap. And so instead, Loki-otter had watched them from the edges of the tanks, senses very alert and damp fur still trying to bristle with fear, and later he had trodden watchfully in his own form through the glass tunnels that run beneath the water.

Easier to think of such things, and to give mortals the tools to control his work, than to fret over the anxiety tugging at his wrist for attention. He has always enjoyed the wonder in human eyes, at the things that he can do, and still more the sharper pleasure of denying them their explanations.

But more and more, he finds his thoughts turning to the wolfthread still wound about his wrist, his link to Tony, who is busy being clever. The tracking spell cannot cross worlds, but while Loki is on Earth and not with Tony, it suits him to know that his lover is well, and to find him when needful.

 _sorry princess in the middle of SHIELD stuff,_ Tony had sent in reply. _bad timing dammit but I'm not that far maybe I can get a day off?_

Unwilling to walk into SHIELD's grasp unless he must, Loki has stayed away, contenting himself with his own work and the flares of emotion echoing down the wolfthread. For days, he has felt traces of Tony's interest and pleasant bafflement, excitement and intrigue warring with anxiety and dissatisfaction. The signal feels like things not going right, but not dangerously so. A good puzzle that will not resolve.

So, as he works, Loki has relegated it to the background of his mind along with his mild curiosity about what could hold Tony's attention so unwaveringly, as if watching it only out of the corner of his eye.

Perhaps half an hour passes, as Loki listens to the director's plans and discusses with her what the illusion could do to fulfill them. It's simple enough, and human technology can manage what he has not built the magic to. It's almost enough to drown out the thread's flares of brief fear quickly buried beneath a rush of adrenaline, mingled with awe, shot through with surprise.

Far above, the shark circles. Reflecting Loki's own emotions, leaping to match his far-off lover's, it lunges at the fish as they take fright and scatter, hiding behind each other and startled humans.

That's amusing, as the performers and technicians jump. A couple of quickly-muffled screams become nervous laughter; their companions jeer at them for being so easily frightened. "It's not _real!"_ someone calls, and a mild quarrel erupts.

There. Loki can focus on the impressed-anew grin on the director's face, and the memory of playing with the smaller sharks in the aquarium, the otter darting in to catch their flat eyes and away again, watching the way they never stop moving.

And just as he decides that all is well, that Tony has figured out or brought down whatever has perturbed him – Loki has faith in him to do so, Tony _does not need_ Loki guarding his every step, Loki would _despise_ being responsible for anyone who needed him so helplessly – the wolfthread _howls_.

 _Battle-fear-adrenaline_ all come pouring down the tracking spell like the cut left by a sharp blade, becoming one sensation as they tumble all over each other, mixed in with a cry of bitter satisfaction, of _I told you so –_

The illusory ocean and the people exploring it disappear, for all Loki cares. His hands clench into fists, pulse pounding against the humming wolfthread, and his shoulders tense; he fights not to drop into a defensive, snarling crouch, poised to attack or run. He must struggle not to call his knife to his hand, to remind himself that here there is nothing to fight; had he not been savoring that truth?

As Loki focuses more of his attention on it, sharpening the signal, the tracking spell sings of battle and what Loki has come to recognize as the excitement of flight, which Tony delights in so greatly. But it is excitement edged with alarm and sharp, vivid alertness, and with an undercurrent of fear controlled.

Breath hissing through his bared teeth, Loki stares at nothing at all, blindly, caught between the instinctive desire to race to his lover's side and the knowledge that he _cannot_ , that Tony is a warrior in his own right, and that Loki does not know the Way. For he does not know where Tony is; the wolfthread will point straight to him, but this is not like the night Tony's regent attempted to kill his prince. Then, Loki could hold the image and location of Tony's home in his mind; he knew his destination.

If he leaps blindly, the Void will take him, he will be lost… He _cannot –_

What he must look like, caught between conflicting desires, as he snarls and raises a fist against nothing…but he does not care. It is not for mortal eyes that he forces himself into stillness, demands that his hands unclench, straightens his spine and reins in his breathing, closing his eyes until he has himself under control again. It is for himself. For a moment, he had felt as if he were in some form not his own, with the beast's instincts at war with his mind, and Loki prides himself on his control, as a shapeshifter moving between bodies. And it is for the faith he has in his bright warrior Tony Stark.

And it is rewarded, for after what must have been only a few minutes, the rush of emotion steadies and settles, although it does not quite calm again. Whatever has happened to Tony, it is over for now, and his Midgardian lover is not badly harmed.

It is to the director's credit that she does not ask, "Are you all right?" as Loki returns to himself. Loki has never encouraged such familiarity from the people of Las Vegas. He has lived among them; he is not _one_ of them. He has always held himself apart, even when he was in a mood to play.

It took someone exceptional, appropriately enough, to be the exception.

Instead, he steps away – the people in the room clear his path like fish before a shark – and puts his back to a wall for a moment. He catches himself grooming his fingers through his hair as if petting himself quiet, and stops.

Just as he does so, a familiar sound buzzes underneath the somewhat subdued chatter now filling the room. Loki recognizes it immediately, and can taste the relief of that sound; what he cannot determine is why it is so far away…

Ah, yes. Now he remembers. He had been keeping the illusion-discs, and the paper-thin holding spells that bind and release on command to mount them to the walls, in the same pocket as his phone. When he had emptied that pocket of its contents, he had left the phone on the table as well. He'd paused only to draw a finger around it in an absentminded ward, shielding it from thieving hands.

 _Tony._ It must be – and Loki reaches out a hand and calls the phone to him.

It flies in a perfect arc over the heads snapping around to follow it, and slips easily into his hand. And only as it buzzes against his palm does Loki glance up from the glowing screen and the familiar name there to take in the growing puddle of silence, as people stop and stare.

No props. No disguises. No devices.

Nothing but the magic.

 _His_ magic.

Loki meets the eyes in face after face, from bafflement to wonder to fear to disbelief to delight and back again. And he grins back at them fearlessly, showing his teeth and holding his head high, _daring_ them to say anything.

"Like I said," he declares, "I'm _very_ good."

And he turns on a heel, and walks away – not retreating, not running, not fleeing, only leaving, not because he's afraid of what they will say or do, but because he has somewhere else to be.

Let them deal with what he can do, or not.

He doesn't care about _them_.

"Tony," he says into the phone, as if his heart were not pounding, as if he knew nothing.

" _Hey, you,"_ Tony answers, sounding winded. _"Funny story."_ Loki can hear the faint reverberations that mean he is speaking through the suit's comms, and there are other sounds, further away, that he cannot make out.

Moving without thought, Loki makes his way through the ornate hallways and towards the garishly lit night outside as Tony goes on, _"So, that SHIELD thing? Turns out they're researching interdimensional travel too."_ He laughs shortly. _"See, I told you there'd be other experts out there. You'll never guess the angle they're taking."_

Loki does not accept that challenge, dismissing the science of it the same way he dismisses Tony's technology. He can enjoy the beauty and grace and usefulness of it; he does not expect to understand it any more than he expects Tony to understand his magic. "What happened?" he asks instead. An automatic door, halfway through its slide, stops mid-closure and allows Loki to step through.

" _Basically?"_

"Let's start there."

"… _a hole in the world just opened up and trashed the entire research complex…which I_ told _them was gonna happen!"_ Tony growls, as if that were the important part of the story. _"You'd think I'd just walked in off the street rather than being the expert they_ deliberately _brought on."_ There's a shudder in his voice as he goes on. _"Fuck, I hate caves, Loki. I hate caves collapsing on me even more."_

The neon-lit Las Vegas Strip sprawls away on both sides as Loki prowls around the edge of a fountain, pacing off the tension. Everywhere, hordes of travelers stumble around and gape at the wonders, starry-eyed with the reflections of the lights. "You're not hurt?" Loki asks, even knowing the answer, because he knows he is expected to ask.

Tony cannot expect to know _all_ his secrets, and the tracking spell remains one.

" _Nah, armored up. I love the magic materialization thing, princess, I_ love _it. I'm just a bit spooked. Cave-ins, and all. SHIELD's gonna be digging people out for a day or so at least."_

Almost idly, almost making himself believe that, Loki perches on the lip of the fountain and crooks his fingers at the scatter of coins in its basin, remembering the taste of metal in the water and on his otter's tongue. One by one, they splash out of the water and into his hand, and he tosses them back. Shifting lights, caught by the water, reflect off his face and dark clothes, and he ignores the passersby whose eyes he's caught as their steps slow. "I've yet to hear the funny part."

" _I did say that, didn't I…?"_

"Tony…" Loki warns, growling. Irritated, he glares at the humans watching him, who hurry along, and flicks the silver coin currently in his hand against the fountain's stone. It's hard to tell if a chip flies off, or if that's only water.

" _Okay, well, that hole in the world I mentioned? Before it blew up, this big guy with a magic hammer fell out."_

Now, that _is_ interesting, and Loki forgets about the coins, instead raising an eyebrow at the falling water as if he might be able to see the immediate past in its spray. He's never had much luck with that spell, if he was not there to begin with.

"Not Thor?" he asks, though Tony certainly knows Thor.

" _Nope,"_ Tony confirms, spitefully cheerful. Good. Tony is fine. _"Big, mean, bad attitude, armor –"_

"And you're _sure_ it's not Thor?" Loki can't resist asking, feeling the corners of his mouth twist into a smile.

Tony says, _"Ha ha,"_ rather than laughing, and adds, _"Also, he's blue. Black stripy face paint. Calls himself 'Ronan the Accuser'."_

Still staring into the fountain, Loki considers the new information. He is over a thousand years old and likes to know things. He should be able to place… "Sounds Kree."

" _Oh, good!"_ Tony answers, and Loki manages not to laugh at the sarcastic tone in his lover's voice. He would never have thought to ask for someone who could answer his own cutting remarks with matching insolence; he never would have dreamed of so much _._

" _That tells me everything. Solves all my problems with the blue guy snatching SHIELD's alien power source and making a run for it while everyone else was dealing with the freakin'_ ceiling _falling in. Everything's under control, now that I know that."_

He pauses for breath. Loki tries to see the stars through the fountain's spray and smirks, waiting.

" _On a totally unrelated note, of course…are you doing anything tonight?"_

And Loki – Prince of Asgard, sorcerer and shapeshifter, called Silvertongue, sometime Las Vegas magician – laughs.

He still has ambitions of his own, but they can wait, for he has time. He stands on the edge between light and darkness. Free to wander, he has work to do and worlds to conquer and games to play. He has a family and a Realm to carve out his place within anew. And he has someone who loves him to come back to, who challenges him and offers him battles to fight and problems to solve, and who demands nothing of him, save that he be who he _is_ and find out who he could be.

For the moment, at least, he's happy.

He does not care at all about SHIELD's problems, although…what alien power source? Is it powerful? Can he have it, if he's clever enough to steal it without them noticing, or at least without them catching him?

And since it's Tony who's asking…

Loki smiles like a coyote, reckless and mocking, teeth bared, eyes bright beneath Las Vegas' blazing neon lights and electric stars.

"What did you have in mind?"

* * *

You are not the light of my life. Making you happy isn't my greatest dream.

Your smile is not all I live for. I've got my own stuff going on.

But you're strange and fascinating and I've never met anyone like you.

I want to give you everything just to see what you would _do_ with it.

– xkcd #968, "Everything" (Randall Munroe)

* * *

 _End of Act IV_

* * *

 **Author's Note:** And here we are. I'm posting this last chapter six months to the day after I started actively writing _Mirage_ , and it has been a ton of work and a hell of a ride! _Mirage_ has been my life; thank you for coming along with me. Please check out the Behind the Scenes/Soundtrack bonus material at le-letha, dot deviantart, dot-com, slash, journal/Mirage-or-the-Vegas-AU-Nobody-Asked-For-694853766, and if there are any questions I can answer, or any choices I made for this story you'd like to discuss with me, or anything you particularly liked that you'd like to tell me about, just let me know!

Thank you for reading my story.

Fair flight to you all.

 **Le'letha**


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